Everybody's Got Their Daemons
by GakuenAlicefan27
Summary: A daemon!AU story of D. Gray-Man based on the daemon concept of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, though you don't need to have read the books to understand. Let's take a look at our favorite characters and their daemons!
1. Merissa

A/N: Hey, there! It's been a while since I've published anything on this site, so I'm really excited about this story!

I did this based on the daemon concept of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy, but there are a lot of different things as well. I thought that the D. Gray-Man universe would be an awesome place to apply this concept on, and I had a lot of fun writing this story.

This is a multi-chaptered fic, I already have six chapters written!

Please, let me know what you think. Constructive criticism is well-accepted, but flames will be used to roast marshmallows. ^^

Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man, otherwise a lot of things would be different.

Enjoy!

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><p><span><strong>Everybody's Got Their Daemons<strong>

_by: GakuenAlicefan27_

**Chapter 1: Merissa**

What Allen likes the most about Merissa is her size:

She isn't small enough to be defenseless in a fight, but she isn't big enough to be troublesome in case they have to hide. He likes to hold her in his free time, though she isn't exactly light; and to lie sprawled on the bed with her upper body resting on his chest, so they can keep chatting for hours on end.

She, unlike the majority of the daemons, settled when he was very young - that gruesome day when he met the Earl five years ago didn't change him just physically; it also impacted his soul.

The sadness of having lost Mana, the hope of having him back, the terror of seeing him as an Akuma, the shock of his Innocence activating, all the things that happened that day contributed to shape his soul, and, some hours after it was over, he realized that Merissa still hadn't changed from the form she had assumed to protect him during the fight, while she normally changed forms every hour or so.

He remembers the awe he felt while looking at her after she confirmed that, indeed, that was it; she had settled.

His Meri was a strong yet slender feline, with long legs, a small head, and tall oval ears. Her fur was boldly spotted with black on tawny, and though Allen couldn't tell what type of cat she was, he thought that Merissa was so beautiful that it was hard to believe that she was his soul. However, contradicting his thoughts, the more Allen observed her, the more he felt that this was completely right, and this was exactly how Meri should look.

How many times had he wondered what Meri would settle as? A thousand animals must have crossed his mind, but none of them had made him feel like this. Now, he wondered how he could ever have thought about those other forms. This was how Meri was meant to be; no other animal would suit her.

Even now it was still quite shocking to him that Merissa had settled as a big feline. She almost never changed to felines when he was young, preferring discreet animals that would not call attention towards her: rats, small birds, different types of insects, sometimes a tiny cat, but rarely ever something that couldn't go in Allen's pockets. She liked to go unnoticed, perhaps because she was Allen's soul and Allen already attracted too much attention with his red arm alone; it was her way of making things a little better.

Later on, Cross adopted him and told him that Meri was a serval; an African wild cat. It made sense that Allen had never seen this type of cat, since he had never been to Africa. He had never seen any other serval daemon as well, so it only added to his amazement.

Meri got really embarrassed with how much Allen was staring at her and calling her perfect, which was every ten minutes. They could feel Cross looking at them from time to time; the expression on his face gave away that he was surprised and perhaps even worried that a ten year old boy already had a settled daemon. It wasn't normal, but Allen reasoned that he was never normal to begin with, so it didn't bother him.

There isn't a pattern of daemons in the Black Order; there are some that contrast so greatly that people get shocked to learn that they belong to members who work on the same section. Allen always loves to watch their interactions, no matter how small; daemons are fascinating and he'll never tire to observe them.

A small movement takes him out of his thoughts and he looks at Meri, whose head has been resting on his belly. He smiles, raising a hand to caress her soft fur.

"What is it?" He asks as she tilts her head towards his hand, liking the feeling of being petted.

"Your stomach is growling." She says, and Allen suddenly realizes that she's right, he's starving. "Are you going to the dinner hall?" The boy thought about it. He had just returned from a long mission and was tired as hell. In the moment, he only wanted to relax even if just for a few minutes.

"I'll go in a bit, but I'm too tired to get up now." He can see that Meri gets worried when he says that; Allen Walker passing up the opportunity to get some food isn't something that you see every day. Her ears perk up and she raises her head.

"I can go get you something, if you're that tired. I'm sure that Jeryy would put some food in a plastic bag if I asked."

The offer is tempting, but Merissa wouldn't be able to carry everything that he needs to eat to satisfy his stomach and his parasite type Innocence in just one trip, and Allen knows that she's tired as well. Besides…

"You can't just show up at the dinner hall without me, Meri. People would freak out." He reminds her, then watches her ears drop.

"Right…sorry, I forgot."

"I know. Sometimes I forget it as well."

In reality, a person and their daemon are somewhat physically dependent as well. Normally, the longest distance the two can stay away from each other is of about ten meters; some even less than that, depends on the person. When that distance is surpassed, side effects occur: both the person and daemon start feeling immediately ill the more the distance grows, and the only cure is for them to be near again. In case that doesn't happen, they die in a matter of minutes.

Allen and Merissa were never like that.

Even before Meri had settled, even before Allen had met Mana, ever since he could remember, Meri and he had never felt the need to be physically close to each other. They were connected to each other, as much as any other person was connected to their own daemon, but Allen wouldn't even stir when Meri decided to take a look around the place they were staying at and disappear for a few hours. He knew she was fine (he would feel if she wasn't), and he knew she was a curious daemon, so why not? That was another reason as to why people called him a freak, besides his arm.

Mana never had any problem with that. Cross was deeply surprised when he found out, but never held it against him. True, he advised Allen not to let other people know about it, but for his own good, and that was something that Allen could understand. His daemon had already settled way too early, and adding this to the fact that Meri could come and go as she pleased…Only God knows how people would react.

It was still difficult, though. Meri valued freedom, and so did Allen, so it was very easy to forget that they weren't supposed to stay very apart from each other whenever they were in the heat of battle, or even when they were just with their minds occupied with other things. They had managed, so far, but there had been too many close calls in the past.

It was better if people didn't know. Perhaps he was being too pessimistic; maybe his friends would understand, but he was better safe than sorry, and they were safer this way as well. He couldn't explain why, but he had a strong feeling that letting the truth out would be too dangerous.

Allen doesn't like putting the people he loves in danger, and he does it far too frequently for his liking. Ever since he was a kid the people who stayed away from him were the ones who ended up better. It was so bad that there was a time in which he thought that Merissa would settle as a raven, a symbol of ill omen. Well, looks like you don't need to have a raven daemon to be ill omened after all.

Yeah, having people find out isn't an option.

Meri moves again, this time getting up from the bed. Her expression is gloomy, and he just knows that her thoughts are trailing the same path as his. He shakes his head, trying to will the depressing thoughts away; then he gets up as well, smiles at Meri, who smiles back, and they go to the dining hall. There's no use thinking about it now.

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><p>AN: That was it! The first chapter!

Next one is: Lenalee and her daemon!


	2. Ryel

A/N: Yo! So, this chapter is about Lenalee. Writing Lenalee doesn't come easily to me, and the chapter ended up being rather small, but the next ones will be bigger!

I would like to say "Thank you!" to the people who put the story on their alerts list and favorited it, and the person who posted a guest review as well!

IMPORTANT: The author Silver-Snow-77 sent me a PM yesterday saying that she was writing a daemon!AU in the D. Gray-Man universe as well, and asking if I had any problem with that since I was the one who posted first and there was the possiblity that her fanfic could have similarities with mine. I don't have any problem with that, so, if any of you read her fanfic and find some similar things, she isn't copying me, it's just a coincidence; these things happen.

Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man, otherwise a lot of things would be different.

Enjoy!

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><p><span><strong>Everybody's Got Their Daemons<strong>

_by: GakuenAlicefan27_

**Chapter 2: Ryel**

What Lenalee likes the most about Ryel is the fact that he's always there:

She doesn't remember much of her life before the Order, having being taken away from home when she was still six, but in the very few flashbacks she manages to have, Ryel is always by her side, taking care of her.

During her early years at the Order, the worst years of her life, she could always count on Ry to help her and defend her whenever she tried to escape, and when she finally broke down, he always tried to make her feel better, to help her with her loneness, even though he wasn't doing fine either.

He would tell her stories he remembered hearing her parents tell her before, and the warmth that filled her as she heard them made the pain a little more bearable. He also changed forms a lot, more than the other kids' daemons, she thought. It was a way to entertain her while she lied tied to a bed: he often chose to turn into birds of different colors; there wasn't much color to be seen where she was.

Over the years, Ry had become the only one she felt close to, the only one she talked to, because he loved her, and she loved him, and that's how it should be, since they are a package.

Because of that, they had grown very attached, to the point that even after Komui arrived and things got better, even after he managed to make her think of the Order as a home, they would never separate more than four or five meters. She didn't feel comfortable if Ryel went any farther, and he didn't like it either. They liked to be extremely close, preferably touching: Ryel perched on her shoulder, or her hand on his head, no matter what form he took. It gave both of them a sense of safety, of support.

She knew that people could normally stay from nine to ten meters away from their daemons without feeling ill, but they just couldn't do it. Four meters were their limit, and they were okay with that.

She remembers the day Ry settled. She was fourteen, a normal age for a daemon to settle – they normally did so between fourteen and seventeen. It was after she had already gone in a few missions, a little after Lavi and Bookman arrived, and after she had gotten the guts to socialize with new people besides her brother. She was glad she did, having other people to talk to made her happy, made her feel alive and, eventually, she became the smiling sweet girl that everyone now knew her for.

There was nothing especial that triggered it; she and Ryel were at the library, looking for some documents that her brother had asked her to get. Then Ry, who had been a little hummingbird looking the upper shelves, just flew down to the ground and turned into a medium-sized mammal with beautiful antlers on his head: a deer.

Lenalee almost asked him why he changed, but before she opened her mouth she had a weird pleasant feeling overcome her, and then she just knew that Ryel wasn't changing anymore. He confirmed it, and she wasted no time in showing how happy she was, even though she was surprised that he didn't settle as a bird, since they were the forms Ry preferred to be in.

The first one she told was her brother, of course; he would be devastated if he wasn't the first to know. He cried dramatically upon receiving the news, saying something like "My sweet Lenalee is growing up too fast!" - But the way he beamed at her after he was done crying showed her just how proud he was. She told the rest of her friends next, and they congratulated her.

She is happy now because she feels complete.

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><p>AN: Like I said, this chapter ended up being smaller than I intended, but that's okay.

Next one is: Kanda and his daemon!


	3. Ran

A/N: So, this chapter is Kanda's. I am particularly fond of this chapter, as I had a lot of fun writing it.

It contains some spoilers of Kanda's past, I warn you!

Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man, otherwise a lot of things would be different.

Have fun! ^^

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><p><strong><span>Everybody's Got Their Daemons<span>**

_by: GakuenAlicefan27_

**Chapter 3: Ran**

What Kanda likes the most about Ran is the fact that she understands him:

They have been through a lot, Kanda being a second exorcist born from a tube; he often felt that Ran was the only thing that was truly his in this life, and not an echo of a previous exorcist who lived years ago.

He had to fight and flee at a very young age, but if he did so, Ran would follow, fighting just as hard so both of them could get the freedom they wanted. There was Alma as well, but even Alma had to go at a point, and it all came down to both of them again. They trust each other, because if one of the goes down, the other will inevitably follow. Some may think that this is a selfish thought, but for them it is comforting, and it serves as a reason to keep on fighting; Kanda doesn't want Ran to die, so he has to give his best to stay alive, and vice versa. They've always thought like that, and so far it's working.

Ran doesn't talk much, just like him, and neither of them ever gets bothered by it. They aren't like that idiot moyashi and his equally idiot big cat who are always talking to each other about everything. They aren't like Lenalee and her deer either, who are always clinging to each other; they like to give the other some space, though neither can stay away from each other more than ten meters – it happened once, in the middle of a battle. They accidentally got separated by fourteen meters because the structure they were standing on gave away due to an Akuma blow. It hurt. It hurt like nothing had ever hurt before. They could see each other, but those four extra meters of distance were enough to keep both of them curling on the ground in pain. Luckily, they managed to get close again after a minute or two of struggling, and the pain subdued. A little more, maybe four or five minutes, and they'd be dead. After that, both made sure to never let it happen again.

In the battlefield, they work together as one. Ran knows exactly what kind of moves he's going to make just by reading his expression, so she positions herself in a way that her attack plus his will make a deadly combination. She's sarcastic as well, and sometimes a little hotheaded. Okay, very hotheaded. There were times that they even got into minor verbal fights, both of them being the hotheads that they were – which seems to be a source of amusement for that idiot usagi and his daemon: "Really, Yu? Who the hell manages to get into an argument with their own soul? Only Yu and Ran-Ran…"

The redhead would always regret saying that less than a second later, when his and Ran's anger would turn on him. His, for being called Yu; that brat didn't have permission to call him by his first name. Ran's, for being called Ran-Ran; sure the other daemons had nicknames, but "Ran" was a monosyllabic word that didn't need any shortening, so the bookman apprentice had taken on repeating it just for the sake of "being cute". Ran found it ridiculous, and Kanda agreed.

He couldn't say that he hadn't wondered what she'd settle as; everyone wonders what their daemon will settle as, but it wasn't a thought that he wasted a lot of time on. Sometimes he wondered, but he'd soon brush it aside because he'd find out the day she settled anyway, and his thoughts wouldn't change a thing.

He never freaked out because of the time she was taking to settle as well. Most people started to worry if their daemons hadn't settled by the time they were sixteen or seventeen. When Kanda reached sixteen (physically), and Ran still didn't show any signs of settling, he just thought that perhaps it would take a little longer since he was a tube child; he didn't worry in the slightest.

Turns out that she did settle when he was sixteen, four months away of being seventeen. It wasn't anything grand, it happened during training. Kanda had been using Mugen to slice some dummies while Ran was turned into a lioness and cutting the dummies' throats with her sharp teeth when, in the middle of an attack, she changed from a yellowish blur, blur because of her speed, to a bluish blur that caught his attention.

He immediately stopped what he was doing in favor or watching Ran's new form closely. She still had very sharp teeth that were tearing the dummy apart, but instead of being a lioness, she was a big canine with long legs and a bushy black fur. The fur's color, Kanda noticed, was a deep black, so much that it looked blue in the right light, almost like his blue hair. Ran's eyes were amber. She was a wolf.

He waited for her to finish the dummy before getting closer and touching the soft fur, asking with his eyes if it was permanent (he had a feeling it was). She nodded, smiling a rare smile. Kanda really liked her settled form. She looked strong and elegant, swift as ever. She had changed to wolves other times, but never this color, and never for long, she seemed to prefer bigger forms that could tackle someone to the ground if needed. He supposed she could still do it, even though she wasn't nearly as big as a tiger or a lioness.

He didn't bother telling anyone that she had settled, but they caught on after a day or two (Lavi caught on after some hours, being more observant than others). They seemed to have the same impression that he did: that form was strong, but also beautiful. Not that he minded the whole "beauty" aspect. There were other daemons that were more beautiful than her, like Merissa, how Kanda would find out when he met the moyashi.

What? They fought like there was no tomorrow, but there was no point in denying that Merissa was beautiful like very few daemons he had ever seen, not that he'd ever say that out loud, mind you. He wasn't blunt like the moyashi, who upon seeing Ran for the first time immediately said: "She's stunning!"

No, he didn't even care when he said that. He and Ran definitely didn't get embarrassed, like Lenalee insisted (Ran: Definitely not!). He was just surprised because the kid actually had the nerve to call her stunning while Mugen was being pointed at him.

Ran thought that the moyashi's daemon was very beautiful as well, even though she and Merissa were rolling on the floor at each other's throats more often than not – He refused to call her "Meri" like everyone else did. That would give the impression that they were close (Ran: Besides, Merissa is too pretty a name, it shouldn't be shortened just because some people are too lazy to say the whole thing. Kanda: Yeah…I suppose.).

Well, he wouldn't dwell on that. Perhaps there was still time to meditate a little before dinner…

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><p>AN: Next one will be: Lavi and his daemon!


	4. Leon

A/N: Lavi's chapter ended up becoming the longest chapter yet because I used it not only to introduce Lavi's daemon, but also to explain the reasoning behind my choice of settled forms for Merissa, Ryel, Ran, and Lavi's own daemon.

It was meant to be a quick class about animal symbolism, and I thought it would be adequate for Lavi to explain it since he's the one who probably has to know, as a bookman apprentice.

Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man, otherwise it would be a lot different.

Reviews are lovely, and constructive criticism is well-accepted, but flames will be used to roast marshmallows. ^^

Thank you to everyone who reviewed, favorited, or put the story on the alerts list so far!

Enjoy!

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><p><span><strong>Everybody's Got Their Daemons<strong>

_by: GakuenAlicefan27_

**Chapter 4: Leon**

What Lavi likes the most about Leon is the fact that he still changes, even though he already settled.

He settled when Lavi was sixteen, a little after he and Bookman arrived at the Order. To tell you the truth, he never really wanted Leon to settle; he liked to see Leon change from one form to other every two minutes or so – Yeah, he was aware that Leon changed forms way more than the average daemon, but hey, what was wrong with that? He himself changed names every once in a while.

Leon is a chameleon, which is awesome because it means that he still changes colors! There are times, depending on the place he's hiding, that people have a really hard time seeing him, so it's great to gather information, even though they are restricted to being able to stay ten meters away from each other at the max.

"Leon" isn't his daemon's real name, by the way, but whenever Lavi changes his, Leon does the same. This time it wasn't even him who chose the new name; it just happened that he took so long to decide on a new one that people in the Order got tired of saying "Chameleon" all the time and opted on calling him "Leon" for short. Leon thought it was good, so he decided to stick with that one.

Currently, Lavi and Leon were hiding from the old panda and his bat daemon. The old man wants Lavi and Leon to spend the whole day locked in the library studying! Needless to say, Lavi doesn't like to study for hours on end, even though he knows it's necessary to become a Bookman in the future.

There are a few subjects that Lavi actually likes though, like Daemon Interpretation, for example! It consists on judging a person's personality based on what form their daemon settled as. It also consists on being able to read the expressions that a daemon makes in order to understand how their humans are truly feeling, but that's too complex and takes years to master, so Lavi is going to focus on explaining more about the first part rather than the second one.

Since there are too many forms a daemon can settle as, Lavi will use his teammates' daemons as examples in a quick lesson.

Now, who to begin with? Well, ladies first, so he supposes he'll start with Lenalee.

Lenalee and Ryel are so sweet! Ry had already settled as a deer when they first met, so Lavi couldn't play with trying to guess which animal he would settle as like he does with many other teenagers, but it doesn't matter.

According to many books on the matter, a deer often represents the action of caring for other people, along with gentleness, intelligence, watchfulness, and they also represent a mothering instinct. Lavi wasn't surprised in the slightest when he found out about that; these characteristics seem to match Lenalee pretty well.

There's Yu as well. Little Ran-Ran (Leon: We're gonna get killed for that someday… Lavi: I know!) settled as a wolf a few months after they had met; it didn't surprise Lavi that she had settled as a somewhat big animal, seeing that they seemed to be of her preference, though Lavi had imagined that she'd settle as some kind of big feline, perhaps a panther or a tigress, or even a bird of prey.

Of course, he did some research on the symbolism of wolves, and, boy, it took him an entire day doing so! People would be surprised at how many interpretations on wolves there are, especially because some vary greatly, depending on the culture of the people who wrote them.

When it comes to daemons, wolves are frequently associated with warriors, but there's so much more to take into account that it's difficult to find a consensus.

In some cultures, they are represented in a positive light, as a protector and a pathfinder, being animals that trust their instincts; in others, they represent destruction. The wolf also represents free will, toughness, and the ability to escape. According to the few things that Lavi managed to find out about Kanda's past, that last part seems to fit him rather well.

The warrior part is easily associated with him as well, but what confused Lavi the most was the fact that wolves are social animals, running in groups called packs, and being frequently associated with leadership.

Kanda likes to be alone, seeing as he isn't a people person. Eventually, Lavi did find out some notes mentioning the lone wolves, the ones who live and hunt alone, with no pack. There are some discussions about this behavior, but Lavi chose to believe that this was Kanda's case.

Ran-Ran is a little bit friendlier than Kanda, but just a little bit, which means basically nothing. Both of them highly dislike being physical with other people as well; Kanda draws out Mugen if Lavi even as much as touches his shoulder and Ran-Ran never lets Leon be on her back. The only one Ran-Ran is constantly having physical contact with is Meri, and by physical contact Lavi means trying to rip each other's throats off. Well, at least it's something. Lavi wonders if Allen and Kanda have realized that despite fighting so much their daemons always stand closer to each other than to the other exorcists' daemons while in missions…

Speaking of Merissa, do you know how old Allen was when she settled?

Ten.

Yeah, you heard it right. Allen was ten freaking years old when Meri settled! He remembers the day he found out, some months ago:

_Allen, Lavi, Lenalee, and Kanda had been called to Komui's office. They thought it was because of a mission, but it turned out that the crazy inventor had managed to lose some data he had because of the mess his paperwork always is in; thus, he needed to gather up the information again. _

_It was an excruciating three-hour-long period in which Komui asked questions such as their birthday date, latest synchronization rate, etc. All of them had picked up seats while Komui went on with the questions. Kanda looked like he was about to slice Komui any second, Lenalee looked as if she wanted to facepalm, Lavi was just tired, and Allen looked as if he'd rather be anywhere but there. _

"_Okay, so let me see…Kanda. General Tiedoll said that he met you when you were ten, is that right?"_

"_Yeah."_

"_And Ran had the form of a leopard, then she turned into an eagle about two hours later and stayed that way for about seven more hours?"_

_Kanda took some seconds, remembering the situation before nodding._

"_Why do you need to know that?"_

"_It is mandatory that the Generals who are also guardians give us a detailed description of their protégés and their daemons during their three first days with them." Komui said._

"_Holy crap, they are almost as obsessed as the Bookman." Lavi said. _

_Komui went on asking Kanda until that part was finished. Then, it was Allen's turn. _

"_Allen, Generall Cross said that he met you when you were ten, is that correct?"_

"_That's right."_

"_And that Meri…" Komui stopped, frowning at the paper he was holding. Then he continued, looking to Meri and Allen with something akin to astonishment in his voice. "And that Meri had already settled as a serval when he met you." He finished. _

_Lenalee, who had been caressing Ryel's ears, looked up, eyes wide. Kanda blinked twice, then exchanged a quick look with Ran, as if confirming that he had heard right. Lavi fell from his chair, taking Leon, who had been on his lap, with him. Allen looked embarrassed. Meri looked like she wanted to dig a hole in the ground and just disappear. _

"_Yeah. Meri settled when I was ten, a few days before I met Cross." Allen said. Komui nodded, shifting papers. _

"_When you were ten?!"Lavi all but screamed. How the hell someone already had their soul shaped when they were still ten?!_

_But they didn't continue the conversation, as Komui started asking Lavi the questions. _

That had been one hell of a surprise. Lavi had asked the panda later if there were many cases like that. According to Bookman, there weren't.

He did a research on servals as well, since he didn't have any material on them. It was the first time he had seen a serval daemon, and the first time that he had seen a daemon as beautiful as Merissa. The other members of the Order seemed to share his opinion that Meri was a real beauty. He guesses this is because the daemons are manifestations of their human's souls, and Allen's soul is particularly beautiful.

First, he began with the animal itself, and not its symbolic meaning. Servals have the biggest ears, comparing to the rest of their bodies, and the longest legs in the world of cats. They also have an excellent sense of smell, hearing, and sight, which they use for hunting and escaping, as well as being very good at hiding.

Lavi is so jealous! Whenever they are on a mission Meri always is the first one to sense that someone is near, he wishes Leon could do that as well! It's so useful!

Looking into the more symbolic meaning, having a serval daemon may mean that the person is good at distinguishing truths, as well as being persistent and resourceful, with a tendency of doing great leaps in life.

Lavi doesn't know much about Allen's past, but what he sees daily seems to match this description. Especially the part he found about having a great sense of mischief; that guy comes up with some really elaborated pranks when he's up to it.

Interesting enough, servals are lonely animals by nature, but when introduced to a family they tend to form a tight bond with them, and an even tighter bond with a specific person of that family. Lavi will have to look out for that one.

And, of course, there's Leon, his own daemon.

Chameleons, as animals, are always adapting according to their environment, blending in to the circumstances. This kind of extends to the symbolic meaning as well, seeing as people with chameleon daemons tend to be very observant, and to be very trustful of what they feel or sense, being able to find the correct way to act in a specific situation.

As Lavi has said before, what he likes the most about Leon is his camouflage ability, though Bookman doesn't share his enthusiasm about it; "Changing colors is used to express the feelings, to attract mates, and in response to temperature and light. This basically makes you wear your heart on your sleeve, and a Bookman doesn't need a heart!" He said.

Well, Leon isn't a regular chameleon; he is a daemon, so he doesn't have to necessarily follow these rules. The colors he uses don't express his feelings…Okay, maybe a little, sometimes, but that rarely happens! And there's nothing wrong in using his colors to catch the eye of some pretty girls!

"Lavi…"

"What is it, Leon?"

"He found us!" Lavi turns around, coming face to face with a very pissed off panda and an equally pissed off bat.

"Run!"

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><p>AN: So, if anyone wants to know the sources I used to search for animal symbolism, feel free to PM me or ask for it in a review.

Also, I would like to explain something that Lavi said and that has been mentioned in the previous chapters: Merissa isn't beautiful just because I really like servals; I already thought like that even before I decided on which form she'd settle.

You see, I'm constantly thinking that Allen has an extremely beautiful soul, probably one of the most beautiful ones I have ever seen characters have, even with his flaws and traumas.

So, I reasoned that this was something that would reflect on Meri, since she kind of is a physical manifestation of his soul; people in the story comment about Meri's beauty because they are seeing Allen's soul as it is.

Her beauty is different from Ran's. Ran's beauty comes mostly from her elegance and posture, while Meri seems to radiate beauty, just like Allen makes people feel better.

Next one will be: A journey to Allen's subconsciousness!


	5. Merina

A/N: So, this chapter takes place in Allen's subconsciousness, and there are some explanations at the end as well.

I'd like to say that I was so very happy when I turned on the computer this afternoon and saw so many reviews, I swear my heart swelled with joy! Thank you! Thank you very much!

And I would like to warn you that there will be some spoilers in this chapter for those who haven't watched the more advanced episodes, and that some parts of this chapter aren't exactly following the canon.

Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man, otherwise it would be a lot different.

Enjoy! ^^

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><p><strong><span>Everybody's Got Their Daemons<span>**

_by: GakuenAlicefan27_

**Chapter 5: Merina**

Merina is a bobcat. Bobcats are members of the cat family, bigger than cats, but smaller than leopards. They are typical of North America, and are not considered closely related to the servals.

Still, they've got enough similarities with the servals for it to bother Allen.

Because Merina is Neah's daemon, and Allen doesn't want to be like Neah.

It is bad enough that both Merina and Merissa are from the cat family, which means that their humans must have at least some characteristics alike, but their similarities don't end just there. After all, if it was only that, Allen wouldn't be so bothered; people who have wolf daemons are quite different from people who have dog daemons, even though both are canines, and people with dove daemons are almost the opposite of people with raven daemons, even though both are birds.

Allen is, once again, tied to a throne-like seat that exists deep in his subconsciousness, and Merissa is tied next to him. Neah is standing in front of them with Merina by his side, talking about something that Allen isn't paying attention to (must be something related to the Earl and Allen's inability to win against him, like always).

This irritates Allen to no end: Neah just talks. He could do anything; he could probably kill them, or at least hurt them, but he never does that. He never raises a finger against them, and it's as if Neah thinks of them as allies, but they are not.

The space around them is completely white. There's nothing interesting to see, but, sometimes, Merina leaves Neah's side and wanders around until the she becomes just a black dot in the white and then disappears completely. She doesn't do that to get something, she doesn't do that to see if there's anybody besides them nearby (there isn't, it's pretty obvious), she doesn't do it because she heard something; she does it for the sake of doing it.

She likes to roam from time to time; Allen's noticed that in the last couple of times he spent tied to that throne. Neah doesn't even flinch when she does that, no matter how far she goes – a hundred meters, two hundred meters, or beyond. He knows she will be back, and he's right, she always comes back.

Allen can see Meri from the corner of his eyes and he knows that she's thinking the same thing he is: It is all so familiar; it's like looking into a mirror. They know they are looking at Neah and Merina, but they could be looking at themselves, because that seems exactly like the type of thing they would do - it was exactly what they used to do before Cross advised them against it.

Neah catches Allen's eyes following Merina's retreating figure once, but he just says:

"Mer values her freedom. I'm sure you can understand." And he can. He shifts uncomfortably upon hearing Neah's nickname for Merina: Mer is much too close to Meri, but even their full names are pretty alike, so it's no surprise.

He also isn't surprised to realize that Neah knows that Allen doesn't have limitations concerning Merissa's distance towards him; this guy seems to know almost everything there is to know about him, even the things he never told anyone.

And, even though he didn't like it, he felt that he also understood Neah better than most people did.

Merina settled when Neah was still pretty young, though a little older than Allen was when Meri settled. She differed greatly from Mana's daemon, Lika, who settled as dog when Mana was fourteen.

Merina was curious, and liked adventures while Lika preferred to be quiet and keep to herself, but the brothers still supported each other to the ends of the Earth.

Allen didn't like to think about these things because they gave opening to other thoughts, such as: Was that the reason Mana adopted him? Was it because he saw Merina in Merissa? Did Allen himself even mattered?

He also didn't like to remember Mana and Lika after he'd brought them back from the dead as akumas - Daemons came back as well, but in a distorted version of what they used to be, with a skeletal figure and dull eyes that reflected the lack of proper life in them.

He didn't like thinking about Merissa. It scared him. All of this scared him because a daemon settled, among other things, based on how its human dealt with the situations they came across in life, and everything that was happening was starting to make Allen feel that the only thing separating Merina and Merissa was a decision or two, a situation or two.

He trembled when he thought that, perhaps, the only thing truly separating those two, and consequentially, Neah and Allen, was a few decades and a trip down memory lane.

What Allen dislikes the most about Merina is that, for all he knows, she may have been Merissa.

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><p>AN: Alright, I couldn't leave Neah out of this story because he's quite essencial for the development of some chapters later on, and because...I kind of have a crush on him. ^^

Now, some people might argue that Allen is only a host to Neah and that they are not one and the same, which is the direction my story is going. However, I have this headcanon that they are, so I'm not really following the canon in this part.

Also, in the canon, by the time Allen starts having this conversations with Neah, the Order and the Noah are already starting to suspect that he may have some kind of relation to the Fourteenth, but, in my story, this hasn't happened yet. This happens because it is better for me if Allen starts talking to Neah a little sooner than he should, for the sake of the next chapter.

Next chapter will be: A surprise!


	6. The Cat is Out of The Bag

A/N: So, this is the surprise chapter. This is the last written chapter that I have, so the next ones will probably take a little longer for me to publish them, seeing as I still have to write them and I'm writing another daemon! AU fanfic that takes place in another universe, and that one is being hell to write.

Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man, otherwise it would be a lot different.

Enjoy! ^^

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><p><strong><span>Everybody's Got Their Daemons<span>**

_by: GakuenAlicefan27_

**Chapter 6: The Cat is Out of The Bag**

Allen was pretty sure that when Cross told him not to let other people know that he could be apart from Meri this was exactly the type of situation he was trying to avoid.

Well, better luck next time.

It had begun as a normal mission; a group of finders had found a particularly powerful Innocence in the countryside of Germany, and Allen, Lenalee, Kanda and Lavi were assigned to retrieve it. Normally, the group would be smaller, but all of them had been chosen to go because the finders already were having trouble with some level two and level three Akuma that had sensed the Innocence as well.

They went there as fast as they could, but things had already gotten pretty bloody by the time they arrived. Luckily, the battlefield really was away from any city or population; the area consisted of valleys and open fields. There was a train line far away in the distance, but that was all.

A group of seven finders had been originally sent to the place, but three were already dead while the remaining four and their daemons were struggling to sustain a barrier that was protecting the Innocence: A small yellow flower that stood out from the others because of its bright colors and some weird golden lines engraved on its petals.

They split up as soon as they saw the Akuma. Lenalee and Ryel began fighting against two level two while Lavi and Leon attacked more Akuma that had just arrived. Allen, Meri, Kanda, and Ran had been left with two level three that were about to strike a fatal blow in the four finders. They were so engrossed in the battle that no one of them noticed three figures watching from a hill close by.

The fight went on for more forty or fifty minutes, until Lavi and Lenalee managed to finish off their opponents and went to help Allen and Kanda with theirs. Everything seemed to be going well until Allen realized that the finders had just disappeared. He stopped an attack midway and immediately started looking around to see if he could find them.

He saw them in the far off end of the field, seemingly stuck in a prison he couldn't see. He turned when he heard laughter coming from his right, only to see Road, Tyki, Wisely, and their daemons, standing on a hill.

His friends followed his gaze and the Akuma they were fighting took advantage of it and used their huge arms to basically throw them across the field to where the finders were. Allen was able to grab Meri using his Innocence and hold onto some vegetation on the ground, but they still ended up halfway across the field.

Coughing from the impact, Allen looked at Meri, who had fallen on his leg, to see if she was alright; she was. Then, he turned to look at his teammates who, thankfully, had landed near their own daemons, not too far apart.

"I wonder which one Allen will choose!" Road said. Tyki was sitting with a hand supporting his chin and with a smirk on his face while Wisely looked bored. Allen didn't understand what she meant until he heard Ran howling with anger and turned to look at his friends again.

Kanda and Lavi were attacking the same invisible wall that had been keeping the finders stuck earlier, but their attacks were completely useless. Looking with a little more attention and in the right light, Allen could see that they were being kept in a structure that resembled a cube. Some seconds later, Allen widened his eyes when he realized that the structure was getting smaller; the exorcists and the finders were going to be crushed soon. Near them, but outside the cube, there was a type of lever.

In the other end of the field, the Akuma were nearing the Innocence.

Allen realized that **this** had been what Road meant. He had two choices: Go after the Innocence on the northern end of the field before the Akuma got a hold of it, or go to the southern end of the field and pull down the lever before his friends got crushed to death. He couldn't choose one and then the other because it would be too late. He didn't have time.

Except he did.

Everyone's eyes were on him, but Allen had already made up his mind; he could deal with the consequences later. He looked at Meri, standing right beside him, and nodded. She nodded back.

And then, they ran to opposite directions.

Allen ran in the Akuma's direction, hearing several gasps and a shriek or terror, from Lenalee, but he didn't stop. The Akuma was caught by surprise and Allen managed to destroy it using Clown Belt in a quick attack. Meri, who was faster than him, got to the lever very fast, pulling it down with her mouth and destroying the cube that was holding the others captive.

The fight was over. Allen and Meri were standing more than two hundred meters away from each other, but, of course, there was no problem with that. The other field's occupants, however, were not so okay.

Allen calmly walked towards the Innocence and yanked it from the ground with a firm pull. Then, taking a deep breath, he turned around and looked at the other side of the field.

The surviving finders looked downright terrified. Some of them were even blinking repetitively, not believing what their eyes were showing them. Their daemons were expressing different degrees of shock. It shouldn't be considered as a completely bad reaction if one didn't count the fact that the finders were used to seeing incredibly abnormal things while searching for Innocence but this had managed to be abnormal enough to shock them.

Allen almost flinched. He didn't like those glances; they remembered him far too much of how people used to look at him when he was little. It had been a while since he'd felt like a total freak, but the feeling was slowly coming back to him.

His friends hadn't moved from where they were even though the barrier had been destroyed. Allen risked a glance at them:

Lenalee was kneeling on the ground with Ryel within her arms while both looked about to pass out. Allen thought he should have known that they would react pretty badly; Lenalee and Ryel were the pair of human and daemon in the Order who depended on each other the most; they probably couldn't even begin to understand how they had just seen a human and a daemon part as if they weren't connected at all.

Lavi had a hand on his hair and the other holding his hammer down. It was the first time Allen had seen the redhead's eyes look truly confused; the boy seemed to be mentally going over everything he had ever read about daemons before, trying to find something about what he'd just seen, be it an example, a note, anything. He didn't look like he was having much success with that. Leon was on Lavi's shoulder; he kept changing colors every second.

Allen actually felt disappointed; he had hoped that Lavi, as a Bookman apprentice would know something that explained Allen and Meri's ability, though he never got to build up the courage to actually ask it or even mention the topic. It seemed the situation was even worse than he imagined.

Kanda looked, for lack of better word, surprised. His usually unreadable face didn't have its typical stoic expression. His eyes were a little wide and his mouth was open as if he was trying to say something but the words wouldn't come out. Ran seemed to be better than the other daemons, though she didn't say anything. Her posture was still as elegant as ever, but Allen could see that she was taken aback.

Meri was still near them, observing their reactions like Allen was. She looked kind of sad, and he probably did as well, though he guessed that things could have been worse.

Then he remembered.

_Wait…the Noah! _

Allen swallowed dry before turning to look at the three figures on the top of the hill.

Tyki was looking incredibly pale, even though his skin was still grey. His arms were hanging limply at his sides. Kindall, his butterfly daemon, was perched on the top of his head. Allen couldn't say how she had been affected by this; it was very difficult to read insect daemons.

Wisely had concentrated eyes; probably doing the same thing as Lavi. His mouth had formed a thin line. His daemon was a snowy owl, but Allen didn't know her name. The owl was perched on Wisely's shoulder, looking every bit as concentrated as her Noah.

And there was Road, who looked…Lost.

Her eyes were wide, but Allen couldn't exactly tell which emotion they were displaying: shock, anxiety, surprise, fear, hope, it was impossible for him to tell. Her raccoon daemon, Runi, was in her arms, looking from Meri to Allen and vice versa.

The silence that had fallen upon everyone was suddenly broken when Road whispered something that made Allen's blood go cold.

"Neah…Merina…"

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><p>AN: So, I can't give you a hint about next chapter because I don't know what I'll write in it yet. XP


	7. A Child's Comfort

A/N: I finally finished this chapter! It took me days to write, I'm so happy!

Thank you for the wait!

Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man, otherwise it would be a lot different. And I don't own the "His Dark Materials" trilogy as well. However, I do own Merissa, Ran, Ryel, Leon, Merina, Lika, Runi, Kindall, and Wisely's snowy owl daemon whose name Allen doesn't know! XD

Enjoy! ^^

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><p><strong><span>Everybody's Got Their Daemons<span>**

_by: GakuenAlicefan27_

**Chapter 7: A Child's Comfort**

"Any luck?" Lavi asked. Lenalee shook her head, shutting close the thick book that was in her hands.

"Nothing in this one as well." The redhead cursed lowly, looking back to the equally thick book he was reading.

It had been three days since they arrived back at The Order, and Allen hadn't come out of his room since. The news of what had happened at the mission had spread like wildfire; by now, it was what everyone was talking about.

The reactions had been varied: surprise, shock, amazement, disbelief, admiration, fear; if Lavi were Allen, he wouldn't get out of his room either.

The superiors had yet to pronounce their opinion on the matter, and their silence was driving Lavi crazy. He had expected them to set up a reunion with Allen as soon as they got word of his ability; probably punish him or put him under surveillance for hiding something so important from them. He didn't know if their inertia was a good thing or a bad thing.

In the meantime, Lavi, Lenalee, and their daemons had dedicated themselves to searching through every book available in the library to see if they could find an explanation for what they had seen at the battlefield, or, at least, a record of the existence of something similar to what Allen could do, based on what the white-haired boy had told them on the train ride back to The Order.

Until the moment, all they had found was a huge nothing with a good dose of no-clue-at-all.

Lavi had, of course, asked the Bookman about it, but all the old panda had said was that if Lavi really wanted to become a bookman, he shouldn't rely on other people for information, but search for it himself.

The strangeness of this answer was ticking him off; that response sounded as if the panda knew something about Allen's uncommon trait but wasn't telling him, and it had Lavi seriously considering stealing some of the Bookman's notes just so he could see if there was anything there.

That thought was becoming more and more tempting with each discarded book added to the already huge pile; they were running out of research material.

"Lavi, it's time for lunch" He looked down to the table; where Leon was using a pile of articles as a resting place – The librarian would skin them alive if the chameleon was caught doing that, but Lavi was never one to care about these kinds of things.

"Okay." He marked the page he was reading; then he went to the lunch hall with Leon, followed by Lenalee and Ry.

"I'm gonna try and see if he'll open the door this time." Lenalee said, and Lavi nodded.

Allen's absence was noticeable in itself, but Allen's absence in the lunch hall was painfully noticeable to the point that people would hold their breaths and look at the doors every time they heard the sound of them opening; needless to say, it was never Allen.

Lenalee and Lavi were getting Allen's food these last three days and leaving it at his door. He hadn't asked them to do it, but they had assumed this function since it became clear that their friend was not even going to show up at the lunch hall.

They had tried to get him to open the door; he answered them, but through the door. He didn't seem to be depressed, like Lenalee had originally thought, though he wasn't completely fine as well.

His voice wasn't faltering; they tried to put their ears on the door to see if they could hear him crying, but he wasn't. It was all so quiet on the other side; perhaps he was just thinking.

Other people had tried as well: Miranda, Krory, some finders who really liked Allen, but no one succeeded. Lavi and Leon kept nagging Kanda and Ran to try, but they always ended up with something sharp pointed at them. Even so, they would try again during this lunch!

…An hour later, Lavi went back to the library, having failed miserably:

"_Come on, Yu! At least try it!" Lavi whined, throwing his body sideways so he would avoid getting stabbed with a fork. Leon jumped on Ran's back, but was quickly shoved off._

"_Forget it; this is none of my business! And if you call me by my first name one more time, I swear it'll be the last thing you'll do." Kanda said._

"_How can you say that it's none of your business?! One of your friends has been locked up in his room for three days already!" _

"_The things Moyashi does have nothing to do with me. You and Lenalee should stop obsessing over this matter; you'll just turn the library upside down for nothing." _

"_What?! Don't tell me you don't want to know how what they do is possible! We can't just ignore it, it's not normal!"_

"_Says the boy with the male daemon."_

_Lavi shut up after that. He went back to eating his food, not seeing the quick look exchanged between Kanda and Ran. _

Meanwhile, in Allen and Meri's bedroom, the two occupants were contemplating the events that had happened that week, including the first conversation they'd had with their teammates after the revelation:

_The atmosphere during the train ride back to the Order was heavy. _

_Allen spent the majority of the trip looking through the window, as if appreciating the scenery; Meri was lying near his feet. He could see his teammates' reflections in the glass:_

_Lenalee had her head low, but sometimes she would send quick glances in their direction; Ryel was sitting beside her, looking at anyone but them. _

_Lavi was looking directly at them, but, so far, he hadn't said a thing; perhaps he was torn between saying something or just keeping quiet. Leon was following his example, but Allen knew that it was only a matter of time before their curiosity got the better of them. _

_Kanda was trying to demonstrate apathy, but Allen thought that he seemed to be replaying the earlier events on his head. Ran looked like she was thinking as well, but she also seemed calm. So far, she was the one who was better handling the news, probably because she was aware that Allen and Meri owned them an explanation, and, sooner or later, they'd talk. _

_She was right, Allen thought. No matter how much he hated the prospect of it, he would have to talk about it. Besides, it was better to explain things now, before rumors and assumptions started spreading._

_He sighed; Meri looked at him as if saying: "We knew this was going to happen." Yeah, they did; they didn't regret doing what they had done, it was necessary. Still, Allen wished the secret hadn't come out the way it did; in the worst way possible. Damn Noah…_

_Thinking of the Noah made him remember Road's words, so he quickly changed his trail of thoughts. He'd think about this problem later; right now was not the time or place. _

_Allen could hear the murmurs of the finders and their daemons outside the door, and it wasn't helping any. It got to the point where he was glad when Kanda got up from the seat, opened the door and sent them a deadly glare, shutting them up instantly, even though he normally hated the way the Japanese boy treated them. _

_When he closed the door again, the silence came back. Allen thought it was a good time to start talking, so he discreetly looked at Lavi, who took this as his cue to ask:_

"_So…" he began, "What's the story?" Lenalee looked at Lavi when he said that, then to Allen. Kanda turned his attention to him as well._

_Allen coughed, uncomfortable. His friends seemed to be expecting an incredible tale of how he had become able to be apart from Meri when, in reality, it was just how it was._

"_There's no story. It's just us." He said._

"_We've always been like that." Meri complemented. She had raised her head and was looking at the other daemons. Lenalee widened her eyes and spoke for the first time since they boarded the train._

"_You mean…Since you were born?" They nodded, "But…That was the first time I saw you doing it."_

"_We used to do it all the time when I was a kid. But…People always reacted so badly…We were shunned, misjudged, feared…" Meri looked down when Allen said that; those were memories she always hated to remember. _

"_Allen already attracted enough attention as it was. He had the Innocence on his arm, the white hair, the cursed mark…It was better if we just acted as if we had the same distance limitation as the other people."_

_Both of them left out the fact that Cross advised them against it; the superiors would be suspicious of the General if this particular fact reached them. _

_Lavi swallowed dry, as if afraid of the answer, before asking: _

"_Just…How far can you two be apart?" Allen shook his head._

"_We don't know; I don't think we have a limitation."_

_After that, the uncomfortable silence came back._

They didn't want to worry anyone by locking themselves up, but they needed time alone to think of urgent problems that the others didn't even know they had.

Of course, all the gossip going around was making them feel bad, but hell if they would let themselves sink into some kind of depression because of that. They had dealt with much worse years ago; they could deal with people pointing fingers now.

Besides, Lenalee and Lavi seemed to have accepted Allen and Meri's ability, Kanda just didn't care, and their other friends hadn't been repulsed by it as well; the people they cared about were not rejecting them, so, as far as friendship went, no real damage was done.

Allen actually cried when he realized that. Until that day, Mana and Cross had been the only people who had truly accepted them; back to the time before the Order, the white-haired boy would often wish he had friends who accepted him as well, but he never thought it was truly possible. Now, Mana was gone, and Cross was never around, but he finally had friends like that.

He didn't want them to leave him, and he didn't want to leave them as well. However, anything could happen now.

He hoped Cross wouldn't get in trouble because of that, seeing as he should have had reported Allen's lack of limitation to the Order along with his personal data. He could pretend that he himself didn't know, since no one could prove otherwise, but that would make things even uglier for Allen, because it would mean that he hid such a secret even from his guardian.

The boy wondered what the other Generals would do about it. He hadn't been summoned by them until now, but he supposed that they would want to have a long talk with him eventually.

This could be considered worrisome, if he didn't have bigger things to worry about; like the Noah, for example.

Road knew. Her words proved that she had made the connection between him and Neah, but only God knew how she would use this information, and how the Earl would react to that.

He wondered what conclusion they had reached. They couldn't fully know about his relation to Neah, because not even Allen knew to what extent they were related. He had yet to figure out how he had Neah's consciousness, and what exactly this meant for him.

He should have started thinking about it a lot sooner, but the truth was that he didn't want to. Neah was a topic he'd rather avoid, and he'd been postponing trying to understand him for a long time now. It was childish, he knew; but it had seemed like a good idea after the first time they had met deep down in Allen's mind.

Meri's ears perked up and she looked at the door; somebody was coming. Allen sighed, ready to send Lenalee, Lavi, or whoever it was, away.

"Moyashi, open the door!"

Allen blinked, looking at Meri as if expecting a confirmation that he wasn't hearing things. Kanda? Allen never expected him to come…

"Kanda? Ran?" He said, loud enough for it to be heard in the hall. "What are you doing here?" He got up from his bed and got close to the door.

"What the hell do you think I'm doing? That stupid rabbit and his chameleon keep bugging me to try to get you out of there, and I've had enough of it!"

"Get the hell out, Merissa! Hiding isn't going to solve anything!" Ran said as well.

Allen tried to stop a smile but it was too late; even though Kanda had said that, the fact that he actually came made him really happy. Meri laughed lowly; she loved to get a reaction out of the usually apathetic Ran.

"We're fine, you two. We just need some time." The white-haired boy said, leaning with his back against the door.

"Are you kidding me?! You've been in there for three days already, you idiot! You don't get out even to get your own food!"

Allen flinched at that. On the first day back from the mission, Allen and Meri had planned on going to the lunch hall at the wee hours of night, while everybody else was sleeping, but it turned out that Lenalee had left their food at the door. He didn't want to impose on his friends, it just happened.

"Please, leave. We've got a lot to think about." Meri said, and some seconds later they heard Ran's howl on the other side. Kanda punched the door.

"Stop acting like other people aren't being affected by this as well, damnit! The rabbit and Lenalee spent the last days buried under books in the library trying to find anything that could relate to you!"

Allen suddenly stiffened. He had a response ready at the tip of his tongue - the same one he'd been giving everyone who tried to talk him out of the room - but no words would come out.

He slowly slid his body on the door until he was seated on the ground. Kanda hadn't said anything outrageous, but it brought back old memories – Memories of Mana; of something he'd almost forgotten.

Before he could control himself, he said:

"I used to do that." His voice was whispered; if it hadn't been for a "What?" that came from the hall, Allen would have thought that Kanda hadn't heard it.

"I used to do that." He repeated. "Used to search in books and look through stories; trying to find for something, anything, that made me feel less like a freak."

No response came from the other side of the door. Meri lied down next to Allen and put her head on his lap. Allen continued talking:

"When I was little, before I met Cross, I used to travel with a man who was like a father to me." He hugged his knees, careful not to hurt Meri. "Sometimes, he'd tell me stories. You know, those stories that parents tell their children before they go to bed.

A pause; his throat was feeling dry all of a sudden.

"But I wasn't like the other kids. I didn't like hearing stories about heroes, princesses, or knights. No, I liked to hear the stories that the adults told the kids when they wanted to scare them."

He laughed humorlessly; Meri's eyes turned sad.

"I liked the myths of the Witches of the North."

The hall was silent. Kanda probably had already left, but he went on anyway.

"Because, those were the only stories I knew in which the people were…Like me…The Witches, they could…They could be apart from their daemons as well." Meri nuzzled his belly.

"These were the stories that I asked for; the stories that made me happy. They made me feel like I wasn't all alone in my weirdness."

Something wet was running down his face.

"Of course, it made no sense at all. For one, the Witches were just myths; they weren't real people." He sniffed.

"Besides, even if they were, I would never fit in this category. Witches were female, they had magical powers, their daemons were birds – Meri hadn't settled yet, but she was never fond of turning into birds. And…and they weren't even born with the lack of distance limitation; they had to go through a ritual to develop this ability. I…I had managed to be even weirder than the Witches in this point."

Allen realized that he was crying. He'd been doing anything he could not to think about this for the last years, but it was all coming back to him now.

"I know it sounds twisted, but…even so, the stories comforted me. Does that…Does that make me a bad person? Being glad that, at some degree, I had something in common with such bad people? People who were known for doing evil things? I…I was just a child; I wanted to feel like I belonged somewhere.

He tried wiping the tears away, but they just kept falling.

"Sorry, I don't know why I'm saying all this. I never told anyone about it, but…What you said…It reminded me of those times. You…You probably aren't even here anymore and I'm just talking to myself but…I don't know. I don't really know why I said this." Meri looked at him.

"Allen…" He sniffed again.

"What is it, Meri?"

"They are still here, I can smell their scent." Allen was about to retort that this seemed highly unlikely when a voice came from outside the door.

"She's right, Moyashi."

Allen nearly jumped from the surprise. God, he was really there! How was he supposed to look Kanda in the eye after that?!

Kanda kept talking before Allen could think of something to say:

"Don't give me this crap about you being bad; this is the stupidest thing you have ever said, and you know it. And it doesn't matter that you thought like that years ago. You've got a place to belong now, you belong with us."

His words were kind of harsh, but his voice didn't sound angry. A lump formed in Allen's throat, but it wasn't from sadness. The weirdest thought crossed his mind as he wondered if by "us" Kanda had meant him and Ran or just the Order. It was ridiculous to even consider it, so he dismissed the thought as fast as it came to him. Why the hell had he thought that?

"And this isolation has lasted too fucking long already. I swear that if you don't show up for breakfast tomorrow morning, I will break down your door and drag you to the lunch hall myself."

With that said, Allen heard the sound of Kanda's footsteps and Ran's paws getting farther and farther away. Some seconds later, everything was silent again.

Meri got up; her eyes couldn't quite hide her amusement. Allen sighed, wiping away the last remains of the tears he had shed and fighting a smile that was making its way to his mouth. He wondered if Meri was feeling as silly as he was.

"Well, looks like we've got to set some things straight before morning comes." She said, laughing at the end of the sentence. Allen agreed; he didn't want his door torn to pieces and he could live without the embarrassment of entering the lunch hall being dragged by his leg or something like that.

However, he refused to show up tomorrow if he hadn't solved at least one of the things that were troubling him.

He remembered the last part of what happened on the train ride back to headquarters, right the silence was back:

_Allen realized that the conversation was over for now, so he went back to looking at the window and pretending to be interested in the scenery. _

_This time, however, there was something different: It wasn't his reflection staring back at him through the glass._

_It was Neah's._

_Allen held back a scream, quickly looking to his friends to see if they had noticed that something was off. Lavi and Kanda weren't looking his way; Lenalee was looking at the window as well, but she didn't seem to have noticed anything wrong. _

_He risked another glance at the glass; Neah's reflection still was where Allen's one should have been. There was something awkward about his expression, though; he seemed…sad. Allen had never seen him that way. _

_He kept looking at him for some more time; less than a minute, until he saw Neah open his mouth and mutter: _

"_I'm sorry."_

_Allen blinked and stared, not sure of what he should do. Then, the train arrived at the station, and he didn't get a chance to reply._

_After everyone arrived at the headquarters, and Allen and Meri went to their room, Allen avoided looking at the little wall mirror he had in the corner. He was afraid; he didn't understand what was going on, but he also was anxious about finding out. _

_These thoughts kept going around in his head until hours later, when he fell asleep. _

Allen got up from the ground, determined; and looked to the direction of the mirror.

"Let's get some answers, Meri."

* * *

><p>AN: Next chapter will be: Allen's talk to Neah, and a few other things.

I don't know when I'll publish it, but I'll try to be fast.


	8. Anything and Everything

A/N: I'm back! I worked really hard on this chapter so I would be able to finish it and publish it before the end of my vacation (which is tomorrow)!

I'd like to say thank you to everyone who has been following, commenting, and favoriting this story so far; you make me really happy!

Also, someone asked me why I write "Neah" with an "h" at the end, seeing as most people don't do it. Well, it's a personal choice - That gives me a lot of trouble because my computer keeps switching "Neah" for "Noah" whenever I write it, and then I have to switch it back. Oh, the irony.

I'd also like to remind people that my story will stray from canon at some points, especially regarding Neah and Allen; but, hey, that's what fanfiction is for!

Besides, this story has Yullen hints, though I'm not sure how far I'll develop them. I'm pretty sure that there will be nothing graphic, though.

Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man, otherwise it would be a lot different. And I don't own the "His Dark Materials" trilogy as well. However, I do own Merissa, Ran, Ryel, Leon, Merina, Lika, Runi, Kindall, and Wisely's snowy owl daemon whose name Allen doesn't know! XD

Enjoy! ^^

* * *

><p><strong><span>Everybody's Got Their Daemons<span>**

_by: GakuenAlicefan27_

**Chapter 8: Anything and Everything**

Once more, the reflection staring back at him was Neah's. Allen had a feeling that this was how it was going to be from now on; he wondered if Meri would see Merina's reflection as well if the mirror were low enough for her to look through it – And he also wondered if this was something that he could talk to Neah about; Allen had never been vain, but the idea of never seeing their reflection again would make anyone uncomfortable.

"We need to talk." He said. Neah didn't respond, but he noticed how the edges of the mirror started glowing until the whole mirror was shining and Allen had to cover his eyes because of the brightness.

When it seemed that the light had subdued, Allen lowered his arms and realized that he and Meri were in the very familiar white space of his mind, with the very pleasant surprise that neither of them were tied down this time; probably because it was the first time they actually wanted to be there.

"Allen, they are right there." Meri said, pointing with her head to their right.

He turned to the direction she had showed, seeing a huge white marble table about twenty meters away from where he was. Despite its size, there were only two seats at the table; each one in a far end. Neah was sitting in the nearest one of them with Merina lying at his feet, so Allen and Meri went for the seat in the other end.

Neah wasn't looking at them. He had an elbow being supported by the table and his hand supporting his chin; his face was looking down. Merina followed them with her head until Allen sat in the chair and Meri sat on the ground next to him.

The Noah looked so normal like this; quiet and without a smirk on his face. He seemed to be thinking, and Allen wondered if that was what he did whenever he and Merina were alone in this place, without Allen or Meri to talk to. Did he just sit somewhere and think? Did he watch what was happening in Allen's life? Did he…sleep?

"Allen." The boy willed away these thoughts. Neah was looking at him now; he had a small smile on his face, as if amused at how Allen had managed to drift off in the few seconds that things were silent.

"W-what?" He stuttered, embarrassed.

"You said you wanted to talk, but there are lots of things that we have to talk about, so it would be better if you asked the questions for the conversation to flow." He said.

Allen did have a lot of questions; they'd probably spend a lot of time talking.

"Are you fully aware of what happened a few days ago?" he asked. First of all, he had to make sure that Neah knew the situation they were dealing with. He appeared in the glass window for a few seconds during the train ride, but that didn't necessarily mean that he was watching the whole time.

"I'm always watching Allen. That moment, in particular, was quite the show." There was a slight trace of mirth on his voice.

"I had no choice."

"I know. I wasn't judging you. Your friends seem to have taken it well, though. You must be relieved."

"Yeah, but the Order isn't the only one who knows now…" Allen said; Neah sighed.

"Unfortunately, that piece of information got to the other Noah too soon for my liking, but there's nothing we can do to change it."

"Road already made the connection between us…"

"It doesn't surprise me that she was the first one of them to do so, but not even she can be a hundred percent sure just by what she saw…"

"What do you mean?" Neah looked at him as if unsure of how he would organize the explanations that were to come. Then, after a minute of silence, he seemed to make up his mind. Merina kept silent the whole time; she really wasn't one to talk much.

"Before we get to this topic, let's talk about more basic things." He began, "Do you know what our connection is, Allen?"

Allen gulped. He had a good idea on that matter, but denial was doing a great job in getting in the way. Still, there was no point in trying to deny anything now; it wouldn't solve a thing. Facing the truth and dealing with it was the only option he had. That being decided, he said:

"I used to be you." His voice was firm; it wasn't even a question. Neah nodded, amused.

"Yeah, I guess that's a way to define "reincarnation"." Allen looked at him, suddenly aware of the importance of the conversation they were having.

"That's it, then. I'm your reincarnation. I'm…I'm the current Fourteenth." Deep down he always knew that, but that was the first time he had accepted that fact; the first time he had said it out loud. It felt concrete now, even though it had always been like that. Meri licked his hand affectionately; like Merina, she had chosen to keep quiet.

"It's how the cycle is." Neah said; he seemed glad to have gotten that out of the way.

"But…I'm not like them. I don't have the stigmata, and I don't think I have the powers you had back them either."

"That's because the process is still taking place. It's nowhere near completion yet, but it's definitely begun; otherwise you wouldn't be able to talk to me like that, or to see my reflection in the mirror." He explained. Allen cocked his head.

"When did it begin?"

"Some years ago."

"And the process usually takes that long?" If it had begun years ago, and even now it was nowhere close to completion…

"The duration depends on the Noah and on the current incarnation. Your process is taking longer than it should because your Innocence is retarding it, but it has sped up since last year."

"And why is that?"

"It gets stronger the longer it has been going on; it's normal."

Allen nodded at that; pausing the questions for a while so that his brain could process everything that had been told him. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Meri, and another question popped on his mind.

"Merissa and Merina…they…"

"They are essentially the same daemon, seeing as we have the same soul."

"But…they have different settled forms…"

"The settling happens because of the person's experiences and choices. Of course, there are some inherent characteristics; both of them are felines, as you can see. And all the other Fourteenths before us had feline daemons as well, though even that is something that can change. I can't really give you a class about daemonology; it's a very complex subject.

"And their names…" Neah shook his shoulders.

"What's in a name? It does not define you, you know. We don't keep our names as we die and reincarnate, so why should they? Besides, their names are very similar."

That seemed to make sense, so Allen didn't argue with it. Neah's mouth formed a thin line before moving on to the next matter.

"Do you know why we are like that, Allen?" He asked; Merina's ears perked up at that.

"You mean…The reason as to why we have this ability?" Neah nodded; Allen shook his head. "I thought that it was a unique ability that the Fourteenth usually had or something along these lines. I mean, the other Noah can't do it…" He said. Neah took a while to answer that, seemingly choosing the best words.

"The other Noah can't do it, but the Fourteenths that preceded you and I couldn't do it as well." He said; Allen widened his eyes.

"What?! Then, how?"

"You still don't remember, do you?" Merina suddenly asked, startling Allen; it was the first time she had directly talked to him.

"Remember…"

"She's asking if your memories of the past incarnations have already started coming back." Neah clarified.

"Oh." Allen searched his mind for any memory that didn't specifically belong to him, but nothing came to mind. "No, I don't remember anything. Was I supposed to?" Neah shook his head.

"I guess it's too early for that. Your powers haven't even awakened yet."

"But why did she ask that?"

"Because, if you had my memories, you would know why we are so different from everybody else, even our previous incarnations." Neah looked up at him and Meri to make sure that they were paying attention. "Merina and I… Had the distance limitation, until a certain age when…I did something stupid."

Allen's mouth popped open. What could have happened that would result in such a thing?

"What…How?" Neah's expression turned somber.

"Allen, do you understand what it means to be the Fourteenth?" Allen thought that he had a decent understanding of what it meant, so he was ready to nod, when Neah said: "Do you **really** understand what it means?"

This stopped him midway. It seemed better to just let Neah talk, so he kept quiet.

"Each disciple carries a memory of Noah. You know, Road is the Dreams of Noah, Tyki is the Pleasure of Noah, Wisely is the Wisdom of Noah…"

Allen had a really bad feeling as to where this conversation was going. Meri's head found its way to his lap

"And we…We are the Destruction of Noah. The Fourteenth Noah who destroys everything."

Allen felt a drop of sweat roll down his forehead; he barely heard himself asking: "Neah…What did you do?" The tension in the air was tangible; Neah started talking:

"When I was twelve, my transformation into a Noah begun. At first, I was scared. I didn't understand why I was having dreams that seemed more like memories, or why I was slowly being able to do things I couldn't do before. Mana was the only one I told; I was so afraid of what other people would think, even our own mother."

Allen nodded as a sign for him to continue the story.

"Then, as the memories started becoming clearer, I began to understand what was happening, and I stopped being afraid of using my powers and seeing how far they could go."

Merina put her head in Neah's lap, mirroring Merissa's actual position.

"Mana advised me against it. He warned me that I should be careful; warned me that I was playing with fire, but I didn't pay it much mind. Mana always worried more than it was healthy, and I really thought that I had full control of what I was doing."

Neah sighed; he had such tired eyes.

"Turns out I was wrong. I still had a long way to go until I would be able to control my powers completely; I hadn't even recovered all my past memories yet, I…I had already remembered that my powers could be used for the destruction of everything…" He sighed.

"But I hadn't remembered enough to understand to what extent "everything" went. Never forget just how strong that word is, Allen; it involves even the things we cannot see."

Allen felt the color draining from his face; certainly, Neah didn't mean…

"One day, when I was thirteen, Merina and I sneaked out to test my powers while Mana was busy helping our mother in the kitchen. I had been doing that a lot in the past year; that was just another one of those escapades."

Merina closed her eyes; she clearly disliked that memory.

"I was so amazed by seeing things turning to dust just because I willed them to; it was incredible to know that I could break things that not even the strongest of weapons could. I lost track of the time...And I overdid it, so I ended up losing control."

Neah hugged Merina.

"The power started coming out in waves; it was hitting everything around. Luckily, I had chosen a secluded place, so no one else got hurt. I tried to keep calm and to stop it, but I couldn't, then…One of the waves hit me and Merina, and we were knocked out.

Allen was glad he was sitting; otherwise he would have fallen down.

"Mana and Lika found us some hours after; they got worried sick because they didn't even know what to do to help. Mom had no idea what to do either; she called the doctor but he didn't find any injuries. It took us nearly a day to wake up; we didn't feel any different, so we truthfully answered that we were fine when Mana questioned us. We thought nothing serious had happened…"

"But it had…" Allen whispered. Neah continued:

"Some days later, we were playing tag with Mana and Lika, and we only stopped running when he heard Mana scream. We turned, thinking he had tripped over something and gotten hurt, but he was just standing there, looking at us with Lika curled around his feet. They seemed terrified…And we realized that it was because Merina and I had gotten so caught up in the game that we didn't even notice we had gotten thirty meters apart."

Mana had always been so comprehensive towards Allen and Merissa that it was difficult for the white-haired boy to picture him being terrified at what he was seeing. Neah seemed to get what he was thinking, so he quickly added:

"Mana got used to it after sometime, but you have to understand that that was his first time seeing anything like that Allen, and he was only a child."

Allen nodded.

"But, technically, what happened? I'm supposing that the attack reached damaged your bond with Merina…" Neah nodded.

"We were lucky. At that time, my powers weren't strong enough to completely destroy the bond; they only stretched it a lot, to the point where the distance limitation became invalid. If it had happened some years later, when they were fully matured, getting hit like that would have severed Merina and me; and we would have become lifeless beings."

Allen was taking deep breaths, trying to calm his hammering heart. He had always imagined a thousand different reasons as to why he and Meri were so peculiar, but no one of them had been so surreal, or terrifying.

"And the bond remained stretched like that even after…Death?" He said; Neah nodded, solemnly.

"Hence why you and Merissa were already born like that, and so will the next generations of Fourteenths; the bond will never be the same as it was before. That is why…"

Allen looked up when Neah suddenly stopped talking; the man on the other side of the table looked ashamed.

"What?"

"That is why I said "Sorry" through the window of the train. The lack of limitation never bothered me; on the contrary, I grew to really like it over the time. But, that was because I rarely ever had to deal with what other people thought of it. Mana was okay with that, mom got used to it, and shortly after the Earl felt my presence and came after me so I could join the other Noah, who were surprised, but thought that what I could do was amazing. But you…"

Merina seemed so sad.

"You had to grow dealing with the aftermath of a mistake I made without even knowing why you were that way. Your childhood was hell just because I was a stupid kid; I'm deeply sorry for that, Allen."

Allen didn't know what to say. He just couldn't blame Neah for all that; it was an accident, and he was not the type who held grudges. Merissa made it clear by jumping from his lap and going over to Merina, who was still sitting by Neah's feet, and nuzzling her.

Neah was a little startled because of that. Allen guesses that it had been a long time since anybody besides Neah, daemon or not, had gotten even close to Mer. He smiled, letting the man know that it was alright. Meri and Mer stayed close like that for a few moments, in which Neah added:

"And that's also why you need to be careful when your powers start awakening. Train by doing small things and only progress once you know for sure that you've mastered what you were doing before. Don't let it go to your head, or the consequences can be disastrous." Allen gulped.

"But you will be here to help me, right?"

"Of course." The white-haired boy let out a breath he didn't notice he was holding.

"Good." Besides all the shocking news he had received, Allen was glad that he finally knew why he and Meri were so peculiar; it felt like a huge weight had been taken off his shoulders. "But what did you mean about not even Road being able to be a hundred percent sure of our connection?"

Neah, who had been observing their daemons' interaction, looked up.

"I meant that she immediately correlated us because we are the only two people that she knows who have such ability, but, since I never told any of the Noah, not even the Earl, how I had become able to do it, they cannot know if it is merely a coincidence or not. For all they know, it could just be a very rare inherent ability that some people have."

Allen frowned.

"I think that's an unlikely reaction…"

"For the other Noah, it isn't. For Road and the Earl, though, I agree that it is highly unlikely. They are the ones who remember me the most, and the ones I spent the most time with. The Earl will, at least, strongly suspect it, and I bet that Road already is convinced that you're my reincarnation, even though she doesn't have any concrete proof."

"They've been quite until now…"

"Yes, but Road probably spent these last few days going over every memory of us that she has, trying to see if there's something she missed, tracing our similarities; things that could validate her beliefs. In the upcoming battles, you can expect them to try and get you to use any power that could be associated with a Noah, so be extra cautious."

Allen nodded, before remembering another question:

"Neah…You rebelled against the Noah thirty-six years ago, didn't you?

"I did."

"Then, do you have any idea as to how to stop them?"

Neah's expression darkened considerably; the answer was clear.

"I do have an idea; but…"

"But?"

"I am not convinced that it is the best course of action; it's something that I still have serious doubts about, and I'd rather use it only as a last resort."

"You mean something for me to do?"

"Yes, but I won't tell you now. It's not like you'd be able to go through with it in the moment, and you already have other problems to think about."

"I'd do anything to put an end to the Earl's plans…"

Neah got up from the chair and Allen did the same; the table and chair disappeared in thin air. He thought this meant that the conversation was over, but Neah was still looking at him with an unreadable expression.

"Don't say such a thing, Allen. "Anything", just like "everything", is too strong a word to be used so freely; people often regret doing it, especially the ones as kind-hearted as you."

The boy swallowed dry; this was the most serious he had ever seen Neah be. Then, in the blink of an eye, a smile was in the place of the once serious expression. Merissa went back to his side, as astonished as he was because of the mood change.

"And since you miss seeing your reflection, I'll make it so my reflection shows behind yours and not in its place. Bye, Allen!"

With a wave of Neah's hand, everything went black before Allen had time to ask how Neah knew about his discomfort with that matter. Later on, he'd realize how stupid that question would have sounded, seeing as Neah kind of was part of his subconscious.

* * *

><p>AN: So, like I already said, my vacation ends tomorrow, so my updates will probably take longer now. I still don't know all the elements of the next chapter, but I'm working on it.

Also, someone had already asked me why Lavi's daemon is male, and now another person asked me again, so I'll explain:

I'm well aware that it is hinted that people with daemons the same gender as them have homosexual tendencies. However, this is not the case with Lavi.

You see, when I was writing Lavi's chapter, his daemon was originally a female, but I realized that I had changed it into a male in the middle of the chapter, so I had to rewrite it.

Then, I ended up changing his daemon into a male again O.o After this situation repeated itself at least six times, I realized that I was doing it because whenever I thought of Lavi, I just couldn't imagine his daemon as a female.

I guess you could say that Leon chose his own gender in my head XD

Thank you for reading!


	9. Person of Interest

A/N: Please, don't kill me for taking so long to update! Yes, I know that it's been nearly six months since I posted the last chapter and I'm deeply sorry for that, but there were a hundred and one things going on in my life (like school and college exams) and I ended up not being able to finish this chapter until very recently.

Besides, it took me a really long time to figure out the finer details of this story's plot and I felt that I couldn't write this chapter until I had these things at least partially sorted out. This was seriously the most difficult chapter I have written so far: I had somewhat of an author's block and, no matter what I wrote, I just felt that it wasn't right somehow. In the end, I rewrote it three times until the results were satisfactory.

Also, I'd like to point out that I better than anyone HATE to put many time breaks within a single chapter, but I had to do it in this one otherwise things wouldn't work out the way I wanted them to.

I'd like to thank everyone who is following, favoriting, and commenting on my story! You all make me very happy and keep me motivated!

Some other important notes will be at the A/N in the end of this chapter.

Subtitles:

_"Someone's thoughts."_

**_Neah and Merina talking inside Allen and Merissa's_ minds.**

Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man, otherwise it would be a lot different. And I don't own the "His Dark Materials" trilogy as well. However, I do own Merissa, Ran, Ryel, Leon, Merina, Lika, Runi, Kindall, Wisely's snowy owl daemon whose name Allen doesn't know, and Misha!

I hope you enjoy! ^^

* * *

><p><strong><span>Everybody's Got Their Daemons<span>**

_by: GakuenAlicefan27_

**Chapter 9: Person of Interest**

_Four days later_

Lavi and Leon bumped into Meri on their way to the dormitories. The redhead did his best to suppress a shudder at the sight of the serval wandering alone; it was something he had yet to get used to. He raised a hand in greeting but the daemon walked right past them without as much as nodding.

"Meri-chan?" Leon called, finding it strange that the usually energetic feline was so quiet. At that, the big cat's ears perked up and she turned around to look at them.

"Oh…good morning, guys." She said. Lavi frowned.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I was just a little distracted; worried about how Allen's doing at the trial."

Lavi nodded. Allen and Meri had been summoned to Komui's office the night before in regards of a trial that was to happen this morning; the topic being, obviously, the last mission's events. The bookman apprentice was still trying to figure out why the Order had taken nearly a week to do so, and why, according to some rumors he had heard, there were even superiors from the Central taking part as judges.

Leon jumped from Lavi's shoulder to the ground; he eyed Meri curiously.

"Why aren't you at the courtroom as well?" A dark expression crossed Meri's face.

"There are gonna be two separate trials. Once Allen's is over mine will take place." Lavi's eyes widened; he wondered what he wouldn't give in exchange of knowing their motives for doing that. It couldn't be so that the Order could see if the defaulters' answers diverged. Allen and Meri had been given an entire night's warning before the trial; more than enough time to agree on a mutual story if they wanted to.

"That's…I don't even know what to say. Do you think Allen's will be over any soon? I wanted to talk to him and see how things went but Leon and I gotta pack and be ready for a mission in less than an hour." Meri shook her head.

"I've got a feeling they are gonna hold him down for a few more hours." Lavi raised an eyebrow.

"Why is that?"

"Allen and I think that one of the reasons for having two trials is so that they can see if there's a time limit for how long we can stay apart."

"…So they can use the information against you if necessary…" Leon said, changing colors from green to a light blue. "That's an interesting theory." Meri gave a curt nod. Lavi sighed.

"Well, don't worry; I'm sure you'll be fine. Let's get going, Leon. We'll talk to you two when we're back from the mission. Okay, Meri?"

When no answer was given, Lavi looked down and realized that the serval wasn't even paying attention to what he was saying; her eyes were unfocused.

"_She really is distracted…" _He thought. He called her again, a little louder: "Meri!"

She blinked rapidly, looking back at him.

"Sorry…I spaced out again." Leon didn't say anything. Lavi responded with a small smile and a "No problem. See you later, girly!" And continued on his way to the dorms.

Meri waited until daemon and human disappeared around the corner and went back to walking at the same time that an important conversation was going on in her head.

"_What were you saying, Merina?"_

_**Allen has just been questioned about Cross. He denied knowing his whereabouts and denied that Cross knew of his special ability.**_

"_As we agreed upon yesterday."_

There was silence for a few minutes. Meri waited for Neah and Merina to tell her what they were seeing through Allen's eyes in the moment.

_**Now they are asking him why he would keep such information from his guardian. Allen is explaining what his childhood was like because of his ability.**_

"_Do they look like they are buying it?"_

_**It's hard to tell; they're all just listening quietly. Allen's speaking very calmly, though; he's doing well.**_

Meri sighed. He may be acting calm but he wasn't calm at all. Both of them were feeling the weight of what they were hiding and of what would happen if they were found out. After all, a Noah is a Noah no matter if the intention is good.

_**He's just added that Cross already had to deal with the fact that a ten-year-old had a settled daemon and he was worried of how the General would react if he knew that there were even more unusual things about him. **_

"_How are they reacting now?"_

_**Komui and the Generals seem to have bought it. They know Allen, after all, so they are way less inclined to believe that he'd be lying.**_

"_And the superiors from the Central?"_

_**Their daemons are staring straight at Allen, as if trying to pierce him with their eyes. I don't think they consider the fear of being shunned a reason valid enough. No surprise here, just the fact that they actually came all the way to Headquarters means that they want to find something to incriminate Allen.**_

It's at times like these that Merissa is reminded that even an entity associated with the Vatican can be vicious and corrupted.

She can hear Neah's laughter in her consciousness. _**Especially the entities associated with the Vatican, you mean.**_ Then he adds: _**Now they are asking Allen how they can be sure they can trust that his morals are pure since he'd been hiding something from them and, for all they know, could be hiding much more.**_

There's silence from them after that, and Meri knows that they're listening to Allen's answer. She concentrates on stopping the incessant swinging of her tail – if she can't control her nervousness now then God only knows what she will do when it's time for her trial.

_**Allen said that the fact that he was hiding his ability never affected his missions negatively. He also pointed out that his Innocence hasn't forsaken him.**_Meri knows that Neah has a smug smirk on his face even though she can only hear him. It's a very good answer; they can't argue against it.

_**And they do not have any evidence that Allen's lying about Cross not knowing about his ability, even though they believe he is.**_ Merina says.

"_Great."_

_**The trial is not over though. They started asking questions about the lack of limitation now. Like we thought, they'll try to make it last as long as possible.**_

"_We can handle that."_

_Three hours later_

Allen stepped out of the courtroom feeling mentally drained. He'd been alert during every minute of the previous hours, being careful not to say something he shouldn't or misinterpret a question.

Meri was next. She'd been summoned to an adjacent room a few minutes before he was dismissed; he wouldn't see for some time. His determination at keeping focused on the trial had prevented him from hearing most of her conversation with Neah and Merina, but he knew they'd been updating her on what was happening. He hoped this would be easier for her since she already had an idea of most of what was to come.

He sighed, trying to keep a clear mind in case Neah or Merina decided to tell him something; he didn't want to risk missing anything they could have to say while Meri was in there.

The boy silently made his way to the cafeteria, deciding that he'd spend the rest of the wait at his bedroom after having lunch; it would be quieter and people were less likely to distract him.

He felt a lot of eyes on him as he passed through the doors and made his way to Jeryy to ask for some lunch. A few of the Order's members had either gotten used to Allen walking by without Meri being around or simply pretended that they weren't paying attention to him, though most people still stared unabashedly.

With his tray in hand, he vaguely looked around the place looking for somewhere to sit. He couldn't see any empty table, which meant that he'd probably have to eat beside a group whose conversation was going to lower down to a whisper as soon as he got any close.

Upon closer inspection, however, he realized that Kanda was having lunch at the far right of the room with Ran lying down on his feet. Weighing the pros and cons of taking a seat next to him, he decided that it would be better to spend his lunch with someone who honestly didn't give a damn than to endure the curious murmurs of other people.

When he reached their table, Kanda barely looked up before going back to his food as if Allen wasn't even there. Ran didn't even move an inch. Allen figured that at least this was better than getting glared or yelled at, like had happened so many times before.

He sat down, pointedly ignoring the Japanese boy across from him as well, and began wolfing down his giant tray of food. It was only some minutes later, when he was about to swallow a mouthful of rice, that Neah's voice echoed through his mind, making him choke.

**Meri is doing fine. **He said.

"_What are they asking her?"_ He thought back, still trying to suppress a cough.

_**Basically the same things they asked you. It's barely begun so most of them are still protocol questions. They are being more careful when checking for her physical reactions, though. You know that daemons tend to give away more than their humans.**_

"_That's what I'm worried about. Is she calm?"_

_**Much calmer than she was while you were being questioned. She's managed to keep a straight face until now, and it helps that she has an idea of the questions that are to come, unlike you, who went first. **_

"_Good. Tell me if you feel something is off."_

Neah didn't respond after that so Allen went back to paying attention to his food. From the corner of his eyes he could see Ran on the ground, and realized that she wasn't as unmoving as he had first thought: she'd barely raise her head and discreetly look around from time to time, as if looking for something or someone. He wondered if perhaps she was finding strange that Meri wasn't there to bicker with her.

Allen quickly looked up at Kanda, who was still eating his soba with indifference, very unlike the Kanda who kept true to his promise of breaking down Allen's door and dragging him - kicking and screaming - by the leg to the cafeteria some days ago.

_**That was funny**_**. **Neah said, and Allen felt a vein popping in his head.

"_No, it wasn't! It was totally humiliating!"_

_**Neah is right, it was quite the show. **_Merina said, failing to suppress a chuckle.

"_It was all your fault, Neah! I would have woken up in time to come out of my bedroom by myself if you hadn't blacked me out after we talked!"_

_**Now, I may or may not have done that on purpose…**_

"_You…! Whatever! Stop talking to me! You should be focusing on Meri!"_

_**Okay, okay.**_

After that, Allen finished eating, returned his tray, went out of the cafeteria without as much as a second glance at the table in which he had eaten - well, only a tiny minuscule one - and made his way to his bedroom, where he'd spend the next few hours lying on his bed while Neah told him of what was going on with Meri.

_Meanwhile at Noah's Ark_

"Road? Are you in there?" Tyki asked, entering the twentieth room in a row and sighing in relief when he spotted the aforementioned girl sitting in a sofa near the unlit fireplace. She nodded in greeting, but didn't say a word; Runi was lying beside her, but said nothing as well. Their quietness had begun a few days ago; Tyki hadn't expected it to last so long. He tried speaking again:

"Sheryl asked me to find you. He said you have homework to do."

"I'll do it later."

"You've been pulling it off for days."

"I already said I'll do it later."

Tyki kept quiet, wondering what to say next, when Kindall, who was flying above his head, beat him to it.

"You're thinking about our last assignment, aren't you?"

Road actually raised her head and looked at them this time. Her eyes lingered for a few seconds before she simply replied:

"He's back."

"Sheryl thinks it's just a coincidence." Tyki said.

"Sheryl refuses to believe he is back because he doesn't want him back."

"And you're too eager to believe he's back because you want him back."

She huffed, hugging her knees and muttering:

"What about you? Do you believe it is him?"

Tyki sighed, sitting on the chair across from Road, crossing his legs, and using his fist to support his chin. Kindall remained quiet on his shoulder.

"I don't know. A Noah with Innocence…"

"It's not like there's a rule saying it can't happen!"

"Road…"

"I know it's unusual, Tyki! I know! But I am certain it is him!"

"You can't be sure just because of that one thing." He pointed out; even though he knew that once Road put something in her head it was nearly impossible to change her mind about it.

"You can't deny the similarities between Merina and Merissa.

"I'm not denying anything! I've been thinking about it as well, I just…I can't be sure, I didn't know Neah nor Merina as well as you and the Earl."

"Millenie thinks it's him as well! He hasn't come out of his chambers ever since we told him what we saw!"

Tyki hesitated. He was trying to keep a straight face but things were too messy for him to feign indifference. He knew his siblings had been shaken by the news as well. Neah had been something that kept hanging in the air for thirty-five years; there always was someone thinking of him, but he was a topic rarely brought into conversation.

So far though, he had only discussed the matter of his potential return with Sheryl, Wisely, and now Road: Sheryl had been quick to change the topic; he clearly didn't want to talk about that, and Wisely just plain out irritated him with his nosy habit of reading people's minds so, of course, the conversation hadn't been very productive, though the boy had raised an important question…

"What if it's proved that it's really him? What do you think the Earl is gonna do?"

Road looked at him with fogged eyes; Runi moved from his position on the sofa and asked for her to cradle him. When she did, he started licking her cheek in a comforting gesture. The answer came in a low voice; something that was extremely uncharacteristic of the girl.

"You know, as the years went by, I often wondered about Neah. I wondered if he had already reincarnated or how long it would take for him to do so, but now…only now I realize that I never thought about what I'd do when it finally happened, and I think Millenie is going through the same."

After that, they stayed quiet for at least half an hour, both occupied with their own thoughts, until Runi couldn't take it anymore:

"I hate that."

Tyki looked at him, raising an eyebrow.

"What?"

"The silence. It's so different from when music would echo through the halls." Road's eyes softened.

"I remember. He used to play the piano around this time of the day."

The memory was clearer for Road, who hadn't died and reincarnated after it had happened. Tyki needed to focus a little bit more to remember it, but he did: There was something enchanting about the way Neah played his tunes. It was calm and endearing like few things could. Sometimes Tyki's past incarnation would spend afternoons leaning into one of the walls of the music room; Kindall, a dragonfly named "Callyn" back them, loved these little moments of mirth.

Road listened to it every day; there was a spot on the windowsill that she had pretty much taken up as her own and Runi's. The content expression her daemon used to make gave no room for doubting how much these moments were precious to them.

Merina, looking beautiful as ever, mostly ever sat beside Neah; though, at times, she'd let Callyn, Runi, and even some of their siblings daemons, if they were there, cuddle with her. It was one of the moments in which you could tell that they were really a family, enjoying the music that Neah made with his delicate hands.

Until the day he used the same hands to nearly murder them all.

Tyki shook his head, making sure to keep his poker face on. Kindall was thankfully hard to read as well, but the way she was hiding under his collar told him of the mixed feelings she was having:

A sense of betrayal, even after all those years, because they had trusted him; hurt, because they were siblings; anger, because he lied to them; pain, for the way things turned out; and… sadness because of his absence.

"Tyki…" Road said, and he didn't need Wisely's powers to know what she was thinking: _"I know it's weird, but I miss him."_

"Yeah" Was his reply. In barely a whisper, Kindall added: "I miss him too."

And silence reigned again.

_Two days later, at the Dark Order's Headquarters_

"Yo, Allen! Meri-chan!" Lavi yelled, running towards them with Leon on his arms. Allen waved in acknowledgement.

"Hey, guys!" He said once the redhead reached them and they started walking together. Leon jumped on Meri's back. Thankfully, she was already used to it by now; the first time he had done it she had overthrown him quite painfully on the ground. Ran still did it even now, on purpose though.

"How was the trial?" The chameleon asked, changing from purple to red and then to purple again. Allen shook his head.

"We think we did all right, but they have not yet given the verdict." He said. Lavi furrowed his eyebrows.

"They surely are taking their time. What a hassle…" Meri nodded.

"Tell me about it…wait, are you back from your mission already? That was quick!" She said. Lavi smiled.

"Yeah, it was in London and we didn't face a lot of hindrances."

"Where are Lenalee and Ryel? Weren't they at the mission too?" Allen asked, caressing between Meri's ears but being careful not to touch Leon.

"Yup. They are with Komui taking Misha to see Hevlaska." Lavi said.

Allen stopped walking. "Misha?" He asked.

"Oh, right!" Lavi exclaimed. "Sorry, Misha is the new guy. We stumbled upon him during the mission and he turned out to be the host to the Innocence we were looking for. He'll be joining the Dark Order now."

"That's great!" Meri said. "It's been a while since a new exorcist joined the ranks…" Leon nodded.

"You'll get to meet him and hear the full story at dinner tonight. The guy seems all right even if a little shy." He said, sounding kind of sullen at the end.

"A little shy?" Allen questioned. Lavi huffed, seeming thoroughly annoyed.

"We still haven't seen his daemon! Can you believe it?! We've spent more than a whole day with the guy, including the train ride here, and we didn't even catch a glimpse at his daemon! He's got a pocket in his jacket that he keeps ghosting over with his hand from time to time and I bet that's where he's hiding them!"

Allen laughed, knowing pretty well how invested Lavi was in analyzing other people's daemons. "Perhaps he's just overwhelmed with the whole Innocence thing…" He said. Lavi pouted.

"Yeah, probably." He conceded.

"We have to organize the welcome party!" Meri said. Lavi agreed.

"We'll talk about it with the others later." He responded.

Allen nodded. "We were going to the training room. Wanna join us?" He asked.

"But of course! Leon and I would never miss the opportunity to wipe the floor with your faces!" The redhead said.

"Be careful, Lavi. That's something very dangerous to say when your daemon is standing on my back." Meri reminded him. Lavi laughed nervously.

"And if I do remember correctly, Meri and I were the ones who won the last time we battled you." Allen said, smirking slightly.

"Details, details…" Leon said, and they all laughed.

After that, the hours passed by rather quickly. Despite all the joking that had been made before, things got really intense whenever the two exorcists would battle; Lavi hated losing and Allen actually had a somewhat competitive side that he mostly only showed on poker or during training.

In the end, they didn't get to finish, as Komui interrupted them to take Allen and Meri to the Courtroom.

"See you later!" Lavi said, waving to them as they left. Allen waved back, though he wasn't really sure of what would happen after the verdict. At the back of his mind, he felt Neah stirring; they'd need him alert in case they'd have to make a scape.

Meri remained close by his side during the whole way there, for support. When they entered the Courtroom, it seemed like a repeat from the events of days ago; the same faces looking down at them from their high chairs, their daemons with unnerving blank expressions.

They stood at the center, waiting for Komui to take his seat. Once he did, it began:

A man from the Central started talking; Allen didn't even know his name but he had the strong impression that this person wanted nothing more than to find him guilty. Perhaps all the time that took them in relation to the trial was a good sign; perhaps it meant that they were trying and failing to find something to convict him for.

"…During you trial you were asked if you knew the reason behind your special ability or if you had encountered other people who possessed it. Your answer was that you didn't, and, so far, was the only person you knew who had it." He paused, waiting for Allen to confirm it.

"Yes, sir." He said. The same question had been asked to Meri as well, and her answer had been the same as his.

"…The Council did their research on the topic before summoning you to the trial…"

"_So that's why it took them so long to call for us after that mission…" _Allen thought; he had been wondering about that.

"…But the only material found was based on folklore and not on proven facts."

"_Of course. I myself searched for them while traveling with Cross and didn't find anything."_

"…The Council has also consulted Bookman on the matter."

Allen's mind became a wreck, though he made sure not to let it show. Bookman was the one person who had known Neah and Merina; he was recording history on the Noah's side thirty-five years ago.

_**And that's why it took them two days to give the verdict; they were waiting for Bookman to return from the mission in London. **_Neah's voice said inside his head, complementing Allen's previous thought on the time of the wait. The boy didn't pay attention though because _"Bookman knows. He knows, he knows, he knows, and now they know!"_

"…And although we were denied access to his books, he stated that he never came across anyone like you as well." The man said sounding extremely displeased.

Allen blinked, unsure that he had heard right. Only now did he realize that Neah had sounded absolutely calm when he had spoken some moments ago.

"_He lied…" _He thought. _"He deliberately lied to the Council. Why? And how did you know he was gonna…"_

_**This is a story for another time**__._ Merina's voice said. Allen silently agreed, returning his attention to the man who was still speaking.

"…Due to that, it was speculated that your condition may be a unique side effect of your parasitic Innocence. This, however, is something that we cannot know for sure, and may only hope to prove by medical evaluations that shall take place later on, if you consent to them."

He cleared his throat, as if his next words were stuck on it. Komui had a discreet smile on his face.

"Therefore, after analyzing the situation at hand, as well as the facts and information we have gathered, the Council has concluded that you, Allen Walker, and your serval daemon, Merissa, were not ill-intentioned when you hid your special ability from the Order and shall continue your duties as exorcists. You are now dismissed."

Allen and Meri nodded, bowed shortly in respect, and left without a word, only sighing in relief once they were in the halls and a few corridors away from the Courtroom.

They were off the hook. For now.

* * *

><p>AN: Thank you again for putting up with the wait! I don't know when I'll be publishing the next chapter, but I do know that it will take way less time than it took me to post this one.

I'd also like to add that I ABSOLUTELY HATE to put and OC in a fanfic (the daemons don't count in this case, of course)! One of my biggest problems while writing this chapter was deciding whether I would or wouldn't put Misha in this fanfic, until I realized that this wouldn't work well without him.

This chapter ended up being the longest one in this story, and God knows I worked really hard on it, so I hope you liked it!

See you next chapter!


	10. Path of Goodness

A/N: Hi, guys! It's the tenth chapter! I can't believe this fanfic is turning out so be such a long one (I had originally intended for it to have stopped at the sixth chapter)! I'm so happy!

Thank you very much for everyone who has been commenting, favoriting, following, or simply just reading it! You guys are amazing!

I'd also like to make it clear, before anyone points it out, that Neah is good in my story, and that the plot will stray from canon!

Subtitles:

_"Someone's thoughts."_

**_Neah and Merina talking inside Allen and Merissa's_**** minds.**

Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man, otherwise it would be a lot different. And I don't own the "His Dark Materials" trilogy as well. However, I do own Merissa, Ran, Ryel, Leon, Merina, Lika, Runi, Kindall, Wisely's snowy owl daemon whose name Allen doesn't know, and Misha!

Hope you like it! ^^/

* * *

><p><strong><span>Everybody's Got Their Daemons<span>**

_by: GakuenAlicefan27_

**Chapter 10: Path of Goodness**

Dinner was pretty dynamic: Allen and Lavi had been sitting together discussing the match they had had earlier, when Lenalee and Ryel arrived at the lunch hall with a blond boy in tow.

"Welcome back, Ryel!" Meri said, momentarily stopping the catch-my-tail game she had been having with Leon.

"Hey, Meri! Komui told us that things turned out okay for you and Allen! That's great!" He responded, happiness clear in his voice – Ryel was always worrying about others. He had, undoubtedly, been thinking about their ordeal while on the mission.

Meri nodded. Lenalee stopped by their table, smiling as Ry and the other two daemons started playing together.

"Allen-kun, this is Misha. I don't know if Lavi already told you about him, but he'll be joining the Order as an exorcist." She said, motioning the boy beside her.

She looked at Misha then: "Misha, this is Allen Walker. He's a good friend of ours, and an exorcist, just like us. His daemon, Merissa, is the serval one."

"It's nice to meet you!" Misha said, extending a hand and smiling. Allen got up, extending his own.

The boy looked nineteen or perhaps twenty at the max. He was taller than Allen, with a lean built and hair that fell just a little beyond his shoulders.

"Nice to meet you too, Misha! Welcome to the Order!" He said, sitting back down and making space for Lenalee to sit as well.

Misha sat next to Lavi, who eyed him not-so-discreetly, gaze falling on the jacket pocket he had talked about before. If Misha noticed, he did a good job pretending he didn't.

"Thank you!" He said, his blue eyes roaming the hall with curiosity, taking in the details. His English didn't sound British, but not American either – It most likely wasn't his first language. Allen guessed he was Russian, judging by his name.

"Have you finished showing him around, Lenalee?" He asked; the girl shook her head.

"Not yet, but we decided to make a pause for dinner." She looked at the line to get the food. It was still a little long; they could wait some more minutes.

"What do you think of things so far, Misha?" Lavi asked, taking Leon from Ry's back and putting him on his shoulder.

"The place is huge! I don't remember ever seeing a building this big! And there are such strange things here! The golems, for one, and that woman too…what's her name again, Lenalee?"

"Hevlaska." She answered.

Allen gave a small laugh; Hevlaska had kind of freaked him out when he first met her as well.

"How did the synchronization test go, by the way?" Leon asked.

"Fine…I think. Her reading seemed to be a little clouded, but she said that my synchronization rate is good enough to start. I definitely have some training to do, though. I mean, I'm pretty decent at self-defense, but not against those demons that you fight against. When I remember how they tried to kill me back in London…" He shuddered, his hand ghosting his pocket for some seconds.

Lavi looked at Allen as if saying: _"See what I told you?" _Lenalee nodded at Misha's words.

"You're going to have training lessons for some time; mainly physical at first, and only after that we'll move on to using Innocence, which asks for mental focus as well."

Allen agreed. "It's going to be very tiring for a while." He said.

"Oh, the line is shorter now. Come with me, Misha. I'm gonna introduce you to our cooks and then we'll get our dinner." Lenalee said, looking over to the frontal part of the hall.

Misha nodded, and off they went; Lavi giving them one final look before returning to his food. Allen stomped on his foot.

"Ouch! What was that for?!" The redhead said, rubbing his sore foot with his hand.

"Quit looking at him like that! You're gonna make him uncomfortable!" He responded, voice low so the other tables wouldn't hear him, then caressed Meri's ears as she put her head on his knees.

"Dude, look me in the eyes and tell me you're not curious too! Come on!" Lavi said, taking Leon off his shoulders and putting him on the table.

Allen wanted to respond in the negative, but his eyes betrayed him, quickly looking at Misha as he talked to Jeryy.

He felt a shiver run down his spine at the sight of the boy standing there, seemingly alone. Despite how he had reprimanded Lavi for being too curious, it did feel wrong to look at the scene – A sense of wariness overflowed him.

"Is this how you feel when you see Meri and I wandering apart?" He asked, and this time the low tone of his voice had nothing to do with not wanting to be overheard by other people, but everything to do with the sense of being different that he was all too familiar with. It didn't matter that he now knew why he was like that; he doubted that this feeling of standing out would someday fade completely.

He just hoped that Neah and Merina weren't listening in on his thoughts at the moment; he knew how guilty they felt over this.

Lavi's eyes softened: "…A little, but not so much; because we know Meri, and we know that when she's not with you she's around somewhere." He began; Leon continued:

"But this guy is different. We just feel like we can't know any solid shit about him 'cause we have no idea what his daemon is like. It makes us wonder why he's so guarded to the point of not coming out in the open. As in, does he have confidence issues? Does he feel unsafe in here? Does he have social anxiety? Is there something he doesn't want us to find out? We are not saying that he is a bad person, but there is something very off with his behavior, Allen."

Meri shook her head. "I'll give it to you that it's strange, but you two rely way too much on daemonology. If you can't see his daemon, then just try to figure out his personality by the way he acts with you and others." Lavi scoffed.

"Hey, daemonology has never failed us!" He said. Meri rolled her eyes.

"Just give him time, I bet he'll come around." Allen said, shrugging. Lavi raised a doubtful eyebrow.

"Say what you may, he's weird." He stated. Allen gave him a blank stare.

"Hey, don't think that!" Lavi said, pointing his finger at Allen.

"You don't know what I'm thinking." He replied.

"Right, but I can bet it's something along the lines of "Well, he's sitting at the right table, then: with the boy that has no limitation and the boy with the male daemon".

"Okay, you kind of do." He said, trying hard not to laugh.

"Allen, don't be mean!" Lavi exclaimed, though anything else he had to say was silenced when he saw that Lenalee and Misha were coming back with their food.

Once they were seated, the conversation reverted back to light chattering.

"The food seems delicious!" Misha said, eyes going over his dinner.

He paled upon looking at Allen's giant tray, though. "But I don't think I could ever eat this much…" He muttered. Allen sweat dropped, bringing a hand to the back of his head.

"I have a good appetite." He said.

Lenalee giggled. Lavi laughed, then changed the topic by asking:

"Anyway, where are you from, Misha?"

"Saint Petersburg. I lived there during my whole childhood and some years into my adolescence." The boy answered, taking his first bite of the food.

"What was life like in there?" Leon asked. Misha finished swallowing before answering:

"Well, I was raised in a Christian orphanage – My parents abandoned me when I was just a baby; seemed to be just a few weeks old, according to the priests."

He paused to drink some of his juice. "Even so, I had many happy years in there. The people that I lived with: the priests, the nuns, the other kids; they became my family."

He paused again, this time putting his fork aside and using one of his hands to support his chin. There was a smile on his face, like he had just remembered a thousand good memories.

He started telling them details of his routine at the orphanage; from the games he played with the other kids to the lessons he had with the adults. He talked in a way that left no room for doubting how much those people meant to him; joy and tenderness were clear in his voice as he described them.

Allen was surprised with how talkative the boy was; he had expected him to be way shier, probably because of what Lavi had told him before, but Misha didn't seem to have any problems with actively interacting with other people.

He knew Lavi had noticed this too by now, and was glad that, at least for the time being, the redhead had stopped eyeing the boy without discretion and was just listening to what he was saying.

He probably thought that, if he couldn't analyze Misha through his daemon, he could figure him out based on the things that happened to him in the past; it was not the deep, symbolical research that the boy was used to, but it had its merits nonetheless.

"And what brought you to London?" Lenalee asked after a while.

"Well, I just couldn't stay at the orphanage forever. By the time I was fifteen, I started getting the feeling that I had to figure out what to do with my life, so, when I reached sixteen, I left." He said, taking the last bite of his food.

"Spent two years and something traveling from place to place, doing odd jobs. I had learned a bit of English back at the orphanage and learned a little more on the road, so I ended up coming to England; got a job at the antique store you found me working at – Had been there for a little less than a year before you came by."

Lenalee and Lavi nodded; Misha made a thoughtful face, as if going through the story on his head, then added:

"I guess that's all…oh, wait! I still exchange letters with the orphanage at least once a month – Can I tell them that I became an exorcist, or is it a secret?" He asked.

"You can tell them about being an exorcist." Lenalee said. "But…if you die, they won't be notified, because we can't risk one of them trying to bring you back and turning you into an Akuma."

"Oh." Misha looked as if Lenalee had just slapped him in the face. "It makes sense, I guess." He shook his head, as if trying to get rid of these thoughts; his hand going to his pocket once more.

Silence fell on the table for a few minutes until Misha himself broke it by saying:

"Lenalee, now that we've had dinner we should continue the tour, right? You haven't showed me the upper floors yet."

Lenalee immediately smiled, getting up from her seat with Ry right beside her in an instant.

"Right!" She said, then turned to Allen and Lavi once again "Which reminds me, Misha's training starts tomorrow. Would you help with it?" Both boys nodded.

"Okay, we'll be going now, bye!" She said, making to leave. Misha followed her, waving his hand to them. They waved back.

After a few more minutes of the boys talking about trivial things and their daemons playing with each other, Lavi asked:

"Are we gonna continue that match? I'm heading for the training room again." Allen shook his head.

"Perhaps another time; I have to go to my medical evaluation in forty minutes."

Lavi looked surprised at that; Meri made as disgusted a face as a serval could make upon being reminded of that fact.

"Already? Your trial was just a few hours ago…" Allen shrugged.

"I consented to it; and I guess they just want to have the results as soon as possible so the people from Central can see them before leaving Headquarters." Lavi made an irritated grunt.

"These guys are a pain…"

"I'm well aware..." He got up "I'll see you at Misha's training tomorrow." He said, making his way out along with Meri.

Allen called out for Neah and Merina on the way to his bedroom: _"Are you listening?"_ He asked, feeling both of their presences flickering in his sub consciousness.

**We are. **Merina replied. **What is it? **She asked.

Merissa, who was walking just behind Allen, answered:

"_We'll be going to the medical evaluation soon. Are you absolutely sure that they won't find anything suspicious?"_ She thought, anxiousness lacing her voice.

**It's going to be alright. **Neah replied **The only things that could physically give you away as members of the Noah clan would be the accelerated healing and the stigmata. Since none of these two have developed yet, there's no way for them to find out. **

Merissa breathed out in relief. Allen went on:

"_What about the Innocence? Won't it give anything away?" _He knew for sure that if one little thing was out of the line they'd have the Central breathing down their necks in no time.

Mer was quick to ease his worries: **Your Innocence is acting normally; it's getting used to the changes slowly happening in your cells as it perceives that they don't mean you harm. It's recognizing us as a part of you – The fact that your mind has accepted us as a part of you helps a lot as well. **She said.

"_About that…" _Allen started _"I even used it as an argument in the trial – That my Innocence hasn't forsaken me – And I'm definitely glad about that, but I don't exactly understand how this is possible. I mean, regardless of you being no threat to me, shouldn't all pieces of Innocence be against the Noah clan first and foremost? Shouldn't mine have stopped being loyal to me?_

**Wrong. **Neah said.

**Most people think that this is the way Innocence works, but there are more subtleties than that.**

**All Innocence is solely loyal to God; not their host, not the Order, and not the Church either. It decides how it's going to behave based on the intentions of who is wielding it, and not on who this person is. If said person is fighting for God, then the Innocence will support them; if they turn on God, Innocence will forsake them. It won't care if you're a Noah as long as your goal is to fight akuma and do whatever you can to protect this world from those who want to inflict terror in it. Do you understand? **

"_I see…so that's what applies to us…" _Meri thought.

**To us, to Cross, and to all those who don't stray from the path of goodness, even if how they walk through it differs from how the Order does. **Merina pointed out.

Allen and Meri stopped in their tracks after hearing that last part. Allen used one of his hands to support himself against a wall, feeling a sudden sickness to his stomach, like it had just contorted into a knot. Merissa didn't look any better than him.

"_What do you mean about this applying to Cross?" _He asked, dreading the answer that was coming. He had thought about a thousand and one things during the last few days; Cross had been one of them, but a fleeting one among all the more urgent others.

Perhaps he had even avoided thinking about it on purpose, afraid of dwelling on it and finding out that his mentor had always known way more about him that he'd let on. Now, he felt that this fear was going to concretize.

There was no response for a while; Neah and Merina seemed to be carefully choosing their next words. By the time they started to talk, Allen had already sat on the floor, hugging his Meri and still feeling awful.

**I met Cross for the first time shortly after joining the Noah clan. He already was very powerful back them, though he definitely is even more powerful now. **

**At the beginning, our confrontations were really nasty; battles that lasted long and left both of us feeling drained.**

"_Please, just get to the point." _Meri thought; voice pained.

**Hearing the whole story is important, Meri, even if it's a very long one. The more details, the more you will understand. Besides, we don't know when you'll get these memories back; it's better to clarify some things now. **Merina replied. Merissa kept silent.

**Can I continue? **Neah asked.

"_Yes." _Allen conceded. Somewhere in his mind he felt Neah nod.

**However, whenever I fought against exorcists I did whatever I could to avoid inflicting fatal damage. I had come to love many of my Noah siblings, but still disagreed with a lot of their ways and, as subtle as I tried to be about it in battle, Cross caught on after a while.**

Allen tried imagining the scenes – Playing them out in his head to see if the actual memories of that time would come back to him, but it didn't work.

**Then there was one day, in a city somewhere in Sicily that was rumored of having strange occurrences, when he didn't attack me upon noticing my presence. **

**Instead, he questioned me about how I acted. Can you imagine it? Someone just sitting down while facing a Noah and questioning them about something that they'd found weird? He'd always been different from the other exorcists; way less inclined to believe in everything the Order said – A strong believer that every side of the story mattered, even if it came from the enemy.**

**I didn't see any reason not to answer him, so I simply told him that I preferred not to kill humans, but didn't elaborate any further.**

**Why should I tell him about my qualms with some of the normal Noah behavior? Why should I tell him about the human brother that I still visited? My response was short, especially because I didn't understand why he'd bother with it. **

**Now that I think about it, he was probably curious about me from the very start because of my lack of limits with Merina – Something that, among the members of the Order, he was the only one who knew about. **

"_How come?" _Meri asked; the fact seemed strange.

**I didn't show my abilities to the other exorcists because I liked knowing that I had a card in my sleeve that they didn't even dream about. Besides, I saw my ability as something fun, so why should I use it in boring face-offs? **

**I only ever used it around him 'cause his were the only battles that were straining enough to push me into doing so as a means of getting advantage…**

**Anyway, back to the topic: I didn't run into him for months after that event, so, by the time I saw him again, I had even forgotten that conversation. **

**He didn't, though. As I found out, he had been doing some research…on me. He had – Still has – A lot of contacts and, using my human name, was able to reach Mana and Lika.**

**He told me all that, and I got defensive immediately, thinking he was trying to find something to use against me in a fight; perhaps planning on harming my brother to get to me.**

**But he laughed. He just laughed, loud and clear, obviously amused at something I wasn't seeing – He seems to enjoy irritating other people. **

Neah's voice sounded extremely bothered, as if that particular event still puzzled him.

**When he said that he wouldn't use any of it against me, I asked him why he would even bother researching those things then, and he just responded that it was because he had merely wanted to.**

Allen thought that this really did sound like something Cross would say. It looked like the Cross from that time already was very much like the Cross from now.

"_What did you say to that?" _He asked.

**I told him that this wasn't a valid reason, and he replied that it was the one true reason why people should do most things they did. **

**I was silent after that, so he asked me another question: This time, he wanted to know why a member of the Noah clan would regularly visit his human brother. I responded that it was because he was my brother, and he was the one who kept silent then.**

**I didn't find the silence to be awkward. I was too busy thinking of any ulterior motive he could have; I deduced that he was going to try to recruit me for the Order. **

**I'd be lying if I said I had never thought of joining the Order; my uneasiness with the Noah clan's methods was getting stronger with time: The only things keeping me there were the affection that I had developed for my family members and the fact that I didn't know what to do if I left them – I knew for a fact that they would track me down, most likely threaten Mana…**

**Even so, I quickly discarded the thought of joining the Order. Just like the Noah had some positive traits, the Order had negative traits that could be just as vicious as my family's. Not to say that, in there, I would only be used; at least with the Noah I felt cared for.**

**However, Cross just made to leave without another word and I was so stunned by that action that I was the one who voiced the question: "Aren't you going to ask me to join the Order?" I asked. **

**He merely looked me in the eye and replied: "You shouldn't do that. That place is corrupted." Then he left.**

Allen got up slowly and started making his way to his bedroom again; he was feeling a little better and people would find it weird if they stumbled upon him sitting in the middle of a corridor.

**Are you okay? **Neah asked.

"_Yes." _Allen responded _"Go on."_ He added.

It took Neah a few moments, but he spoke again:

**After that, there wasn't a time when I visited Mana that Cross wasn't there. Brother didn't understand either; said he visited even more than me and spent the whole day just talking about mindless subjects. He was wary at the beginning, but after a few months he started finding it funny.**

**I didn't know what to make of it, but, as time went on, I became less suspicious and more annoyed than anything else. **

**I know I already said it before but he was really irritating; I wanted to strangle him half of the time. **

**Merina, too, constantly wanted to bite Maylia to see if she would just shut up. That coyote daemon of his managed to be even more riling than her human, always with a snarky or joking comment on her mouth, though I have to give it to her that she was very observing and tended to give good lessons; even if you didn't realize it was a lesson at first – Besides, she was deadly in the battlefield.**

Allen remembered his days with Cross when Meri would get extremely pissed off at Maylia.

She definitely wasn't an easy daemon to deal with; hard to impress, sometimes too harsh or too critical; though, like Neah, Allen had to admit that she was pretty accurate on some points if you paid attention to the undertones in her words.

**Sure, we did talk about serious things as well; things that happened on missions, things that happened in the Order, things that happened in the Clan…in the end, we were just two people unhappy with the situation of the places we were in. **

**Years went on like this, and I realized that I couldn't just let the Noah keep doing all those horrible deeds, even if they were my family. **

**I started planning: Considered running away and creating a middle ground; switching locations constantly so they wouldn't find me, taking Mana and Lika somewhere safe…**

**I was much more powerful at that time than I had been at my first Noah years; I was sure that it was possible to do it, if I focused on it, and I had reached a point where I was desperate enough to try. **

**I told very few about my plans: Mana, Cross…, and also my past selves: They too had been uncomfortable with the family ways during their time, but unlike them, who had been convinced that they could change the Noah from the inside, I had seen enough to know that it wouldn't work. **

By now, Allen already was in his room, lying on his bed. Meri, who was lying next to him, perked up at that.

"_You could talk to more than one previous self? Why can we only talk to you?"_

**It's much easier to talk to your immediate past incarnation; the presence of the others tends to be a little bit duller, but you'll be able to actively talk with them after some years, if you seek them out. **Merina replied.

"_Oh, okay." _Meri said. Neah continued:

**But I never got to executing anything I had prepared; the Earl had been suspicious of my actions for some time, though I had been cautious. **

**He had his informants, and found out what I planned to do. In his rage, he blamed Mana; said that he was the one who was leading me astray. **

**He tried to kill him, but Road intervened; she was very close to me, and protected him because she knew how much I loved him.**

**There was no time to flee; the only thing I could do was fight. I had been exploring the finer details of my powers in secret for a long while – But with much more cautiousness and patience than I had when I was young; I would never make the mistake of letting my power get out of control again. Because of that, I had attacks that my siblings didn't know and strategies that they didn't have time to figure out. **

**One by one, I killed them when they tried to prevent me from getting to the Earl…**

He stopped abruptly, as if his throat had constricted. Some seconds passed in silence before he went on:

**I hated it! I hated it! I HATED it! I didn't want to do it! I had planned on leaving so it wouldn't get to that! But I had no choice…**

A deep pain was engraved in his voice; Allen could feel it in his bones. He thought of the first few times he had interacted with Neah inside his mind, back when their conversations still happened with Allen tied to a throne.

Neah seemed so unbreakable then; so cold and proud – So very different from the Neah he knew now.

**Finally, when it was just the Earl and me, I already was incredibly tired. I had a last trick up my sleeve, but I didn't want to use it. The same trick I told you about in our last face-to-face encounter – The one thing that I'm still hesitant on using even now. **

…**In my hesitation, the Earl dealt his strike, killing Meri and I. Several years later, you were born, reinitiating the cycle. **

**The rest: being abandoned by your parents, finding Mana, losing Mana, joining Cross, joining the Order…you already know about. **

**This brings us back to the original topic of this conversation: Cross and what I meant when I talked to you about Innocence's loyalties. **

Allen kept silent.

**Allen, by what I told you, you must have already figured out that when Cross found you he knew that you were the current Fourteenth.**

The exorcist nodded unhappily.

**Don't ask me how he knew that fact beforehand; I have no idea. **

**Perhaps Mana told him, or perhaps he used Timcanpy to get to you, I don't know. I was very surprised to see that he was with you when my conscience started coming back; waking from the deep slumber it had been in since you were a baby. **

**I have to say that I never expected Cross to seek me out after I was gone. I had thought about it when I was still alive: About what Cross would do if I died, and I had concluded that he would merely forget about me. **

**I couldn't have imagined that he would stick by me and, up until today, I don't have a clue why he did it. The fact is: he was specifically looking for you; it was no accident that he found you. **

**During all these years, he knew exactly who he was training and, as dubious as his methods were, protecting. If Innocence merely condemned the Noah clan and those who associate with them, then his Grave of Maria, as forbidden as its attachment to him is, would have forsaken him. **

**However, it knew that the Noah he was aiding was not like the other Noah – This Noah was determined to save akumas and loved humanity – Therefore, Cross was not betraying God, and Innocence didn't have a reason to turn against him. **

"_But why did he direct Allen to the Order? Didn't you say he believed it was corrupted?" _Meri asked.

**The situation was different, Merissa. Now, the Fourteenth had Innocence, and it was probable that the Order would find him sooner or later. **

**Besides, what better place to hide Allen from the Earl than in the Order, where no one would look for a Noah?**

Meri's eyes widened; she hadn't thought about it like that.

…**I'm sorry about how I mentioned it so recklessly while talking to you earlier, though. You didn't seem to have a very good relationship with Cross, so I didn't think it would affect you this much. **

Allen shook his head, turning around in his bed and petting Meri's ears.

"_Our relationship really wasn't the best but…first I found out that Mana knew I was your reincarnation, and I never really had the time to properly digest that; then, you tell me that Cross knew as well…it just felt…like the last straw."_ He sighed.

"…_It made me wonder if it was always just about you; if any of them ever cared about me or if they looked at me but saw you."_ A tear rolled down his face; Meri licked it.

Neah was silent for a while. When he spoke, he sounded absolutely truthful and, for that, Allen was grateful.

**I can't tell you that this wasn't the case. I don't know what was going on inside their minds – From what I saw in your memories, Mana's mental health suffered after my death, and Cross' mind was always an enigma – so it could have been. **

**Even so, you shouldn't just assume that it was the case either. You must feel hurt and lied to, and I guess you are entitled to feeling that, but that doesn't mean that Mana and Cross weren't thinking of you when they didn't tell you the truth. **

**I sincerely believe that they cared for you and knew, just like you should know, that you and I converge in a lot of points, but diverge in just as many. **

**I'm dead, Allen. There's nothing anyone can do to change that. I never was the Fourteenth that lived before me, you will never be me, and the next Fourteenth will never be you. Every two beings are different from each other, even reincarnations; don't you ever forget about that.**

Allen knew that the hurt wouldn't fade just with these words; perhaps it would never really fade completely. But it was a start, and the sincerity in Neah's voice made him feel better.

"_Thank you, Neah." _He thought.

With his eyes closed, he saw Neah smile while holding Merina, then disappear back to the depths of his mind.

There was quiet for a few moments, until Meri nudged his shoulder, catching his attention.

"Five more minutes until the medical evaluation." She said. Allen groaned, but nodded.

"Let's go to the infirmary." He said, getting up from his bed and leaving his bedroom with Meri.

* * *

><p>AN: See you next chapter!


	11. Of Names

A/N: Hi, guys! Here I am again!

Thank you everyone who has been commenting, favoriting, following, or simply just reading this fanfic! You guys are awesome!

Subtitles:

_"Someone's thoughts."_

**_Neah and Merina talking inside Allen and Merissa's_**** minds.**

Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man, otherwise it would be a lot different. And I don't own the "His Dark Materials" trilogy as well. However, I do own Merissa, Ran, Ryel, Leon, Merina, Lika, Runi, Kindall, Wisely's snowy owl daemon whose name Allen doesn't know, Callyn, Maylia, Misha, and Dylan!

Enjoy! ^^

* * *

><p><strong><span>Everybody's Got Their Daemons<span>**

_by: GakuenAlicefan27_

**Chapter 11: Of Names**

The first days of training were, just like Lenalee had said, purely physical, focusing on building stamina and working on Misha's reflexes. Lenalee took the morning shift while Allen and Lavi shared the afternoon one.

All in all, Misha was doing well; he had more resistance than Allen had originally thought, and he was also determined to learn as much as he could, paying much attention to anything that was said to him.

He had to learn how to position himself better, and how to approach the enemy in a stealthier manner, but Lenalee was working with him on that.

The one real problem was that he nearly always ended up overpowered even when it was only one person going against him: The normal fighting stance was human against human and daemon against daemon; since Misha's daemon had yet to come out of wherever he was hiding, the fights would consist of a human and daemon against Misha alone – It was not like the opponent's daemon would attack Misha directly because of the unspoken no-touching-another-human rule, but even just being circled and cornered could mean a great disadvantage in a fight.

Misha didn't seem to mind tough, and Allen and Lavi had accorded with Lenalee that they wouldn't mention it until he did, for the sake of formality.

Allen was somewhat lost as to why Misha would do it; even if his daemon was small enough to fit into a pocket, it did not mean that it wouldn't be of help in a fight – There were a good number of fighting techniques that smaller daemons could use.

Allen shook his head, trying to get rid of the distracting thoughts running in his head for the moment and actually listen to what Misha and Lavi were talking about.

The three of them were sitting in a corner of the training room taking a break, but Allen had spaced out just some minutes after conversation began. Luckily, the boys hadn't seemed to notice.

"…So Lavi isn't really your name?" Misha asked. Lavi nodded.

"Just an alias; it's Bookman procedure." He said.

"Leon isn't my name either." The chameleon daemon pointed out as well.

"Oh…that's…different, I guess. I had never met someone who didn't go by their birth name. That's why you don't have a last name, then." Misha stated, and this seemed to have reminded Lavi of something else.

"Speaking of that, what is your last name? You only introduced yourself as _Misha_ and you said you never knew your parents, but the priests must have given you a last name, right?" He said, and Allen realized that he was right. Misha made a face at that.

"Well…it's a little complicated. The Russian naming system is kind of different. You see, every person must have three parts to their full name…" He started. Allen cocked his head to the side in confusion.

"Three parts?" He asked.

"Yes. The first name, the patronymic name, and the last name. The first name is pretty much what it sounds like, same as you do all over the world, while the patronymic name is...well, like a middle one, but it is derived from your father's first name…"

"Derived from your father's?" Meri interrupted, not understanding. Misha tried to explain a little better.

"For example, if your father's first name were _Ivan, _then your patronymic name would be _Ivanovich_ if you were a boy, or _Ivanovna_ if you were a girl. It's basically just a repetition of your father's name, but with a different ending depending on your gender."

"Oh, I see…" Meri said.

"Then, there's the last name, which is your family name; its ending also changes depending on your gender."

"And how does it work for orphans whose parentage is unknown?" Lavi asked.

"In this case, the people from the orphanage choose their names...all three of them. They can give you a name based on anything: The name of the director of the orphanage, the name of a priest, a historical name, the name of a figure of influence, or even just randomly choose it, but it is mandatory that you have a full name." He said, and then continued.

"My patronymic name is _Aleksandrovich_, as if my father's name were _Aleksandr,_ and my last name is _Matveyev_. If I were a girl, it would be_ Aleksandrovna _and _Matveyeva._"

"And who were the priests basing these names on when they gave them to you? Or do you think they just picked them on their liking?" Allen asked. Misha shrugged.

"I don't know. Anyway, now you get why I only introduced myself as _Misha_ – These names are a mouthful; if I had a short full name, like Allen's, I would introduce myself properly, but, as it is, it's too much trouble."

"Yeah, you're right." Lavi agreed.

"What about you?" Misha asked, turning to Allen. "Have your parents ever told you why they decided to name you _Allen_?" Lavi made a face that clearly said "Oh, damn…".

"Uh, actually, I don't have parents as well. I went by the name _Red_ for a long part of my childhood, because of my arm, and I was only given a name when I met Mana, who was like a father to me." Allen answered, trying not to wince at the mention of Mana; the hurt over his talk with Neah was still pretty fresh.

"I'm so sorry, that was very insensitive of me…" Misha started, voice regretful. Allen raised his hands as if saying "No problem".

"It's okay, Misha. You didn't know."

"Still…" He responded, but Lavi simply put a hand on his shoulder to signal that he didn't need to worry about that.

"Break is over, let's continue!" The redhead said, getting up and being followed by Allen and Misha.

"Okay." Misha said, eyeing his Innocence – A dagger named "Purifier of Sins" that was laying forgotten in another corner of the room alongside Lavi's Iron Hammer.

"So…I know that you said that I'll only be allowed to use it after completing the physical training, but what do you think my Innocence can do? It's so small and ordinary looking, can it really be used to fight Akumas?" Misha asked. Lavi laughed.

"Boy, don't underestimate your Innocence just because it looks mundane. Don't you remember how my Hammer grew in that fight in London?" Misha nodded.

"I do, it's just…hard to think about what kind of powers it might have."

"You'll find out soon." Lavi said, putting a hand in one of his pockets and groaning when it came out empty.

"Forgot the keys of the equipment room?" Allen guessed. Lavi nodded.

"I'll get them; be back in a minute." Meri said, running towards the door and disappearing into the hallway. Allen didn't think anything of it until he turned around and found Misha staring in disbelief.

"How…?" He managed to ask. Allen face palmed; he had forgotten that Misha didn't know about his lack of limitation.

They all ended up sitting down again and spending twenty more minutes talking; Allen first, telling Misha everything he told his friends on the train ride back to the Order the other day, and then Lavi talking about what happened during that mission and how Allen and Meri managed to become instant stars during the last few weeks – Meri, who had come back, rolled her eyes at that.

"If by instant stars you mean being gawked at everywhere you go and nearly getting in trouble with the Central, then I guess you're right." She muttered, knocking Leon off her back.

"I know it might seem like a weird, bad thing but…" Allen started. Misha immediately interrupted.

"No. It's not bad. It's different, just different…not bad." He said. Allen found it strange how quickly and resolutely he had said it, but he was far too relieved to care.

"He's right, Allen. If it weren't for your ability, then me and the all the others would have been killed in that mission." Lavi added. Allen and Meri looked at him as if he were insane.

"Of course not." Both of them said at the same time. Lavi eyed them curiously; Leon spoke.

"I don't see how you could have saved us and retrieved the Innocence…"

"We wouldn't." Meri said.

"We would have saved you and let the Akuma get the Innocence." Allen stated. Lavi looked at him with widened eyes for a moment, then went back to normal, as if he thought that he shouldn't be surprised upon hearing that answer.

"Yu would scoff at you so badly if he heard you say that." The redhead said, trying to hide a laugh."

"I don't doubt Kanda would do that." Allen said, laughing as well. Misha looked confused.

"Who's Kanda?" He asked.

"Another exorcist. He was at that mission as well, but now he's in another one somewhere in Africa so you haven't seen him yet." Lavi said.

"He's a grumpy Japanese with a wolf daemon called Ran. Trust me, you'll know when you see him."

"And when you do, don't call him _Yu_ like Lavi just did; that's a death wish." Meri said.

"You're one to talk about death wishes, Meri; always at Ran's throat." Leon replied.

"You dislike each other?" Misha asked Allen. Lavi snickered.

"Dislike? As much as it hurts my feelings to say that, Meri is the daemon that Ran likes the most in the Order." Lavi said, dramatically putting a hand on his chest. Allen hit him in the head.

"Your feelings won't be the only thing hurt if you keep on lying like that!" He exclaimed. Lavi had a smirk on his face as he rubbed the sore spot on his head.

"You can be so dense sometimes, Allen." He replied.

"I resent that!" Allen said.

"It's totally true, Misha!" Lavi said, dodging another hit from Allen, who had a tiny blush on his cheeks.

After that, Lavi and Misha spent a good thirty seconds laughing at Allen's expense as he glared at both of them. When they finally stopped, Misha asked.

"Is he really that grumpy, though?"

"Oh, yeah. Believe me, you'll need lots of patience to deal with him." Lavi said. Misha made a face at that, as if patience wasn't his strongest suit.

"Anyway, we've spent too much time talking already. Let's get to training!" Lavi said, and this time they did get up and train.

"_Is it like that, Neah?" Child Mana asked, elbows being supported by the table as he raised his hands to show a cat's cradle gone completely wrong. _

_He laughed, then took Mana's hands in his own and rearranged the rubber band the right way. Under the table, Lika and Merina were playing with each other._

"_Alright, boys! It's time for lunch: Go wash your hands!" Mom said, standing at the door that led from the living room to the kitchen. _

_She patted both of them on the head as they nodded and raced each other to the bathroom; the smile on her face had got to be one of the warmest ones in the world. Her squirrel daemon was on her left shoulder, watching Mer and Lika fondly as they followed their humans. _

Allen woke up with a start, nearly knocking Meri off the bed. His breathing was heavy, and his heart was racing. From the corner of his eyes he saw that the clock was indicating 03:27 AM.

Meri was in no better state; her tail was flicking rapidly, her voice was pouring anxiety:

"Allen…this dream…did you…?" She tried to ask.

"Yes…I saw it too…" He answered, mind still occupied by the scene he had witnessed – More than witnessed: Been a part of.

It had been so vivid, so familiar and nostalgic; the joy and contentment that had come associated with it felt so natural, pulsing through him as if he knew what experiencing such a domestic moment with his brother and mother felt like.

"Allen…don't cry…" Meri said, though she herself curled in a ball on his lap after saying it. He hugged her, pulling her close; he hadn't even realized that he had started crying.

**Allen? What's wrong?** Neah asked worriedly.

"_Don't you know? Didn't you see?" _Allen asked, feeling more tears roll down his face.

**No, I was too deep inside your sub consciousness. Did something happen inside your mind?**

"_Yes…I think…no…I know I just saw a memory of when I was you._" He answered.

**Really?! Can you show me? **Neah thought, voice excited and alarmed at the same time.

"_I'll try."_

Allen focused on the dream, remembering it from the beginning and running it through his mind as best as he could. It took less than a minute, then Neah spoke again.

**You are right, I remember that. It happened some months before I started showing the first signs of becoming a Noah…but I don't understand…you are crying, I thought you had seen a bad memory…**

Allen shook his head, finally making an attempt to stop the tears.

"_It was a wonderful memory, I just…Mana was there, and we were playing together like siblings do, and our mother was making us lunch and…a brother, a mother, I never had any of that, but now I remember a time when I did. This happiness…I never thought I'd be able to feel it for myself and now I can do it so clearly…"_

He was still hurt about Mana's secrets, but nothing could stop the fondness that overwhelmed him when he remembered how they had been a family, a blood family, with even more than just the two of them; it made him feel warm.

**Oh, Allen... **Neah said, but didn't elaborate. He knew that there was nothing else for him to do except let Allen go through this moment.

"_Is it always going to be like this?"_ Meri asked, still on Allen's lap.

**Like this…? **Merina questioned back.

"_The memories. Will they keep coming in our dreams, like this one?"_ She clarified. Allen had stopped crying by now, though he was still sniffing.

**No. The memories never keep a pattern; they are probably the most random process of becoming a Noah.**

"_What do you mean?"_ Allen asked.

**Well, they may come in dreams, like this one did, or they may come while you are awake and play before your eyes as if you were watching a movie, temporarily disconnecting you from what's going on around you in the present. Others, often the more specific ones, like names or dates, will simply settle into your brain without you even realizing they did it.**

"_I find it hard to imagine…" _Allen said.

**You'll understand once it happens to you.** Neah said.

"_The more specific ones, you said? This one memory seemed pretty specific to me." _He countered.

**That's because you're too fascinated by the event to realize that some things were missing. For example, you remembered mother's face and you remembered her daemon's form, but did you remember their names?**

Allen thought about it, ready to tell Neah that _yes _he remembered them, when he realized that the other was right. Their faces were clear as day in his mind, but he couldn't remember their names even though he felt like they were in the tip of his tongue.

"_I don't."_ He finally responded, extremely frustrated with himself.

**They'll come around eventually, unless you want me to tell you…? **Neah said.

"_No, I want to remember them on my own." _Allen was quick to reply.

_**Okay.**_

"_Will it take long, though? Do you know?" _

**It took me a little more than a year to regain all my memories when I was in your place, but it varies.**

Allen didn't say anything to that, not knowing if he should feel eager or scared of regaining his memories; Neah had said that he had thought Allen was crying because of a bad one, and the boy didn't doubt that there were terrible memories stored in his past, just waiting to haunt him again.

"_This one was so short…"_ He said, just for the sake of saying it.

**Some will be short, some will be long, and they won't follow a chronological order; it's extremely sporadic. **

"_Oh."_

**Don't worry, you'll get used to it. **

Neah's voice was caring, and it crossed Allen's mind, not for the first time, that they had come a long way in terms of attachment from where they once stood.

"_You're behaving so differently now. What happened to the guy who called me a mad puppet?" _He asked mockingly.

**It was the only way to make you pay attention! You weren't exactly receptive of me back them!** Neah spluttered, defending himself. Allen laughed lowly.

"_It's alright, Neah. I'm not angry at that." _He said, letting Meri get off him and move to the side. He let her settle in a comfortable position before lying down himself; thought's about the memory still plaguing his mind.

"_Do you think I'll regain more memories tonight?"_ He asked.

**Perhaps; perhaps not.**

"_Guess I'll have to find out by myself." _He said, closing his eyes and stifling a yawn.

Some minutes later, he fell into a dreamless sleep.

Allen was sent to a mission in France in the morning, so he wasn't able to help with the training for the following days.

The exorcist had been very apprehensive with the prospect of going to his first mission after his peculiarity was revealed; he couldn't stop worrying about the Noah clan appearing, seeing as he had no idea what he would do if this happened.

Despite this, the mission went as smoothly as it could. The city he was sent to had been suffering constant Akuma attacks for a few days, but when Allen got there, there was no sign of Innocence.

He and Merissa stayed there for five whole days, but none of the inhabitants had seen anything strange apart from the attacks, so without anything else they could do they slayed the group of Akumas that had been attacking the humans and left.

He talked to Neah about the strange tranquility of the events, but he didn't know what to make of them as well. The man seemed to be thorn between staying calm and believing that the Noah were still pondering what their next action should be, or getting worried that they already knew what to do and were simply preparing for a bigger move.

Allen almost wished there had been a sign of them. He was starting to understand why people said that you should keep your friends close and your enemies even closer – When you didn't see them, it most likely meant that they were up to no good.

When they arrived back at the Order, they reported the overall of the mission to Komui and went to the library to write its detailed report.

However, Lavi appeared out of nowhere as soon as they left the office and pushed them aside for a talk.

Allen already had an idea of what it was about – Lavi had been taking the full afternoon training shift for five days after all; he just hoped the boy hadn't done anything stupid while alone with Misha.

He and Meri followed Lavi and Leon to a more secluded corridor and let the redhead start talking:

"So, this is about Misha…" He began; Allen groaned. Meri felt like face-pawing.

"Are you still thinking about that? Please, tell me you didn't do anything weird while I was gone…" Allen said; Meri looked at Leon disapprovingly. Lavi rolled his eyes.

"No. I know you and Lenalee would kill me if I did something to make him uncomfortable. I've been closely observing, though, and I've come up with theories!" The Bookman apprentice said; eyes sparkling.

It was Allen's turn to roll his eyes; he was sick and tired of hearing Lavi's innumerous theories. Still, he knew that Lavi wouldn't leave him alone until he listened, so he conceded:

"Okay, tell me." He said.

"Well, I had already talked to you about some of my ideas that day during dinner, but now they have been refined! Firstly, I completely abandoned that thought that Misha's daemon kept hiding because he was shy. I think you and I can agree, after spending these days with him, that he doesn't have any problem interacting with others.

"Yeah…"

"Now I think he may be doing it as a form of self-defense. You know how some people have their daemons hidden away while fighting to make it harder for the enemy to strike, right?"

"I know, but these people don't hide their daemons all the time like Misha does. Lavi…" He countered.

"Of course, but people with severe trust issues might do it. We can't know how well Misha truly trusts others just by how he acts around us; that's much more subtle."

"I guess…" He started, but Leon interrupted him, eager to start talking. Lavi and his daemon were always like that; when they got curious about something, nothing stopped them until they had figured it out. This curiosity of his probably earned him lots of problems with Bookman, who preached that a Bookman didn't need emotions.

"But that's just one of our theories! We were thinking that perhaps he could have developed some kind of inferiority complex towards us as well! What do you think of that?" He asked. Meri blinked, confused.

"Inferiority complex?" She asked back. Allen hadn't understood either. Leon explained:

"His daemon is small enough to fit in his pocket, and small daemons usually don't have humans who are warriors or strong fighters. Look around! Most of the exorcists' daemons are big mammals or birds of prey. We are thinking that Misha might feel intimidated by that – He could be afraid that people are going to mock him or pity him for having such a small daemon among all those great ones."

"What…?! Lavi, your own daemon is not a big mammal or bird of prey!" Allen exclaimed.

"Right, but Leon is not that small, and I'm not the kind of person to feel insecure about something like this. Misha, on the other hand, could be feeling that he's not good enough, especially because he still has so much training to do."

"Lavi, I really don't think…"

"If his daemon is a small mammal or even an insect…you know that people with insect daemons normally aren't the best or fiercest fighters…"

"Wait, wait, wait! Now you're generalizing! Don't go around saying that about people with insect daemons! Have you ever even fought Callyn?!" He interrupted before Lavi could get even more carried away. The boy looked at him, confused.

"Callyn? Who is that?" Lavi asked.

"Tyki Mikk's daemon…" Allen began.

"Don't you mean Kindall?" The redhead questioned. Allen paused, remembering that, indeed, her name was Kindall and not Callyn.

**Not anymore. **He suddenly heard Neah say inside his mind.

It hit him then that this had been her previous incarnation's name and he had subconsciously remembered it. She had been…a dragonfly, right? The memory was fuzzy but the dragonfly shape seemed clear enough…

**Correct. **Neah replied.

It had been just like Neah said it could be at times; a flash that Allen hadn't even noticed settle down in his brain until he blurted it out. He looked at Lavi, who was looking at him quizzically. He had to be more careful…

"Yeah, Kindall. Sorry, I got confused. Anyway, she's a butterfly daemon and Tyki is one of the strongest opponents I have ever faced…" He started, quick to take Lavi's mind off his mistake.

"I'm not saying that it's all insect daemons, but…"

"Merissa used to prefer turning into animals that could fit in my pockets as well; you know, before she settled. I think you are being off mark here, Lavi."

"Lenalee thinks so as well. Kanda didn't even want to listen…even so, I still think it's a possibility! He's too secretive, Allen! He even takes showers at unholy hours when everyone else is sleeping! He's got to be doing it on purpose!"

"Lavi…I'm not saying that I don't find it weird as well. But I still think that he'll come around with time, and if he doesn't…there's just bigger things to worry about, you know."

"What if this is a big thing, Allen?" Lavi asked; the excitement that had been present on his voice had vanished.

Allen was finally able to notice the underlying worry that had been looming behind Lavi's motives. As much as he didn't want to believe that Misha could be hiding something big from them, he couldn't help but wonder.

"Just…wait a little bit more. Give him two or three more weeks; if he still hasn't shown his daemon by then, we'll ask him directly, as much as I'd prefer us not to."

Lavi seemed to think about it. He exchanged a long look with Leon, then nodded. Meri, who had been silently listening to the conversation, seemed relieved at the agreement.

"Well, we gotta go now. The old panda and his bat from hell must be looking for us; we kind of skipped a study session to look for you when he heard that you were back." He said. Allen laughed.

"We'll see each other at lunch." He said, then watched as Lavi and Leon left.

For a moment he just stood there, berating himself for his slip of the tongue, when he heard Neah say:

**Allen…** He began.

"_I know; I need to pay more attention to what I say or I'll end up compromising myself."_

**Well…yes; but I was going to say that the Bookman apprentice is right, you know.**

"_About Misha?"_ He asked, surprised that Neah had chosen to talk about that. He hadn't commented on him at all ever since Allen had met the boy.

**There is something undeniably suspicious about his behavior. You shouldn't brush the matter away until you know for sure that it's not important.** He stated.

"_You think I was wrong in telling Lavi to wait for a while?"_ Allen asked.

…**No. I don't think that some weeks are going to make a difference. Just…don't forget about it; try to pay him more attention as well. **

"_Okay..." _He said; still looking at the way Lavi had went to meet with Bookman. He blinked; suddenly remembering something.

"_Neah, why did Bookman lie to the Council? You told me it was a story for another time, but I ended up not asking about it after that."_ He thought, as continued on his way. Meri's ears perked up at the mention of that subject even though she didn't need them to listen to a mental conversation.

After reaching the library, Allen chose a table to work on. Instead of working, though, he started doodling, pretending to write the report while actually listening to Neah. He would get to writing the real report after the story.

**Right. It's good that you reminded me; I had forgotten about it as well. **

"_So…" _Allen urged; he was pretty curious to hear what Neah had to say.

**Well, let's see…I'll start by saying that when the Bookman clan worked on the Noah's side all those decades ago, things were a little bit different. **

**The Noah tolerated their presence there but the Bookman didn't get as involved with us as they did with the Order; they were much more guarded because they knew that the Noah could simply decide that they wouldn't allow them there anymore and then they would have to fight for their lives. **

"_But the Bookman clan serves a neutral purpose…" _Allen interrupted.

**The Noah don't really care all that much about respecting neutrality, Allen. They just allowed him there because a Bookman's knowledge could come to be useful to them. **

**That being said, I myself never paid them much attention and we barely ever interacted. **

**Also, you must have already figured out that Bookman had another apprentice back then, since Lavi hadn't even been born yet.**

**His name was Dylan; I mean, his alias was Dylan, and believe me when I say that he managed to be worse than Lavi at keeping an emotionless act. He tried, but there were some things he couldn't keep quiet about. **

**Bookman was always chiding him for it, but I believe that, despite all that talk about not having a heart, deep down he had come to really care about that boy – I didn't know much about them, but it seemed that he'd been under the old man's charge for a long time even before they came to the Noah. **

**In the few times that we interacted, I found Dylan's temper and tendency to bicker to be funny, and so did Road and the Jasdevi; it was a sort of amusement. **

"_But…" _Meri thought, having already realized that something wrong had happened. Allen could swear that he felt Neah grimace at that.

**But not all Noah felt like that. Cheryl, in particular, had always been bothered by the Bookman clan's presence within our home, and the fact that Dylan promptly had a snarky remark to throw at Cheryl's every provoking comment didn't help either. **

**One day, he decided that he'd had enough. I don't know what the argument that triggered his last nerve was about – I only arrived after the fight had already started – but Cheryl attacked Dylan with the very intent to kill.**

**The boy was strong. He had a lot of training and a powerful Innocence, but was not as powerful as a Noah. I intervened before Cheryl could fulfill his purpose. **

**I knew that Cheryl would be furious at me, but he never really liked me much to begin with, and I wasn't extremely fond of him either. I also knew that my other siblings would not approve of me sticking up to a human, but I weighted the pros and cons and decided that I wouldn't allow a human life to be lost just because one of my siblings had gotten angry – I already had to tolerate all their killings that were Akuma-related; there was no way that I wouldn't do something to stop a murder that I could avoid. **

**Like I predicted, Cheryl was furious and my siblings questioned me; I replied that I had done it with their best intentions in mind: For the sake of keeping the respect over the neutrality, and so that we could still use Bookman if we needed him. **

**Not all of them bought it, but the matter was soon forgotten by most. **

**Bookman never talked to me about what happened, but I realized, as time went by, that he was grateful for what I did – There were minimal changes in his posture while around me that gave it away. **

"_You are saying that…" _Allen began.

**Covering for you at the trial was his way of returning the favor.**

"_But what if he hadn't returned the favor?! How were you so sure that he would?!"_

**I wasn't. But I had a feeling he would, and I needed to keep a calm front or you would freak out.**

"_Neah!"_ Allen thought, exasperated _"How am I gonna trust you if you aren't truthful about things like this?!"_ He exclaimed.

**I'm sorry, Allen, but it wouldn't do you any good to see me worried!**

"_Just don't do it anymore, then!" _

**Okay…**

"_Neah," _Meri interrupted "_What about Dylan? What happened to him that he couldn't be Bookman's apprentice anymore?" _She asked. Neah sighed.

**He died some months after that while in a mission for data collection with Bookman.** He said, but the tone of his voice didn't sit well with Allen.

"_Is there more to that story?"_ He asked.

**I…sincerely don't know. I wasn't at the place when it happened, but I always found it weird that Cheryl didn't try to attack Dylan again after that episode, and for him to die just some months after…**

**Still, I can't tell you if he secretly did have a hand on his death; it was one of the things that I never found out. **

Allen rubbed his eyes; the more he knew, the less he liked.

"_I don't even know what to say about…"_

He stilled, feeling a shiver go up and down his spine. Beside him, on the ground, he felt Meri do the same.

His vision became hazy until he couldn't see what was in front of him, then suddenly cleared as if nothing had happened; except that what he was seeing was a completely different scenery now. It played out in front of him as if he was seeing a movie, and a sense of strange familiarity washed over him. It took him less then two seconds to recognize it as a memory:

_He walked through a sunny earth road in a beautiful country area. There were a few houses here and then, standing out among the trees that surrounded the road. The path went straight on, but he took a turn that was barely visible unless you were looking for it. _

_After that, he walked for a few more minutes as the space between the trees narrowed, and then he stopped once he reached a small but cozy-looking white house in the middle of a tiny meadow. Merina, who had been walking alongside him the whole way, suddenly made a dash to the door, excited at the prospect of seeing Lika again – It had been at least a full month since their last visit. _

_He laughed lowly at the sight of Merina anxiously waving her tail and beckoning him to walk faster. Once he reached the door and opened it, she made her way inside in less than a second, only to stop a few meters into the living room. _

"_You two again?!" He heard her say; annoyance clear in her voice. A sigh left his lips without him even noticing; he already knew who he was going to find once he entered. _

_True enough, there they were: Cross, sitting on the sofa with a cup of wine in hand as Maylia lied beside him. _

_Mana was sitting at the back of the room reading a book with Lika curled on his feet and failing at suppressing a chuckle. _

_He took a few steps into the room and stopped beside Merina, crossing his arms and hoping that the irritation he felt would get through to the surprise guests. _

_It didn't._

_Maylia merely smiled smugly, egging Mer on, while Cross smirked and raised the cup in greeting:_

"_Hey, Campbell! How are you doing?"_

* * *

><p>AN: See you next chapter!


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